Mosbacher Institute Research

May 18: Lobbying in Good Times and in Bad

By Anastasia Shcherbakova and Helen Wakefield
Money plays a big role in US politics. There are two primary ways of amassing political influence: donations to campaigns and political action committees (PACs) and lobbying. With no limits on lobbying expenditures, this activity has historically garnered the largest spending. In today’s markets, firms cannot be successful without considering their political environment. Because of this, competitive market behavior and political rent-seeking (like lobbying) have become strategic complements, and firms redistribute their spending across market and political activities based on which arena offers the best chance at increasing revenues.

Read The Takeaway, Lobbying in Good Times and in Bad  

April 29: The Senior Healthcare Divide in Texas

By Sallie Sherman
Texas is getting older. The two fastest-growing age groups are 85+ and 65-84, and they will make up 17% of the total population by 2050. Texas seniors are also experiencing higher rates of often-preventable and non-communicable diseases than ever before, outpacing most other states. Central barriers to effective healthcare could be overcome or mitigated with a few policy changes. The author is a Bush School student whose work was supported by a research fellowship from The Texas Lyceum.

Read The Takeaway, The Senior Healthcare Divide in Texas

In the news on this research:

• Health care for seniors in rural Texas is in jeopardy, The Dallas Morning News

March 31: Public-Private Partnerships in the Water Sector

By Robert A. Greer and Lindsey Pressler
Public-private partnerships (PPPs) have grown in popularity as a method to leverage private-sector actors in the production of government services. With the global challenge of water insecurity, PPPs are becoming more common for large-scale water infrastructure projects such as desalination. Desalination facilities are complex and expensive operations, which means that understanding the appropriate context for PPPs is increasingly important.

Read The Takeaway, Public-Private Partnerships in the Water Sector  

February 26: Female Role Model Impact on the Gender Attitudes of Children: Evidence from Elementary Schools in Somalia

By Danila Serra
Achieving an education in the poorest countries is difficult. Both infrastructures and human resources may be lacking, and the demand for education may be low. Moreover, the prevailing gender norms may be biased against women, leading to severe imbalances in access to education and higher-return jobs. This brief reports on an intervention consisting in male and female college students visiting elementary schools in Somalia, with the aim of increasing educational aspirations and reducing gender inequality.

Read The Takeaway, Female Role Model Impact on the Gender Attitudes of Children: Evidence from Elementary Schools in Somalia 

December 16: Improving Working Conditions in Global Value Chains

By Raymond Robertson and Benjamin Zimmer
Global Value Chains (GVCs) connect consumers in developed countries with workers in developing countries. Working conditions for workers in developing countries are often poor, and finding ways to improve wages and working conditions is a policy priority for companies, governments, non-government organization (NGOs), and other stakeholders. Factory-level transparency alters incentives and leads to improved working conditions.

Read The Takeaway, Improving Working Conditions in Global Value Chains

October 22: How U.S. Patchwork Land Ownership and Regulation Affects Oil and Gas Drilling

By Eric Lewis
Unlike most other countries where the government owns the rights to all minerals, the United States has fragmented mineral ownership, where the rights to extract oil and gas can be owned by the federal government, state governments, and private owners. Different owners put different requirements and regulations on oil and gas firms, and these in turn affect the profitability and therefore the likelihood of drilling. This report explores a setting in Wyoming to show how regulations on state-owned land affect the likelihood of drilling on nearby federal-owned land.

Read The Takeaway, How U.S. Patchwork Land Ownership and Regulation Affects Oil and Gas Drilling

September 25: Medicaid Expansion’s Impact in Texas

By Laura Dague and Constance Hughes
Texas is one of twelve states that has chosen not to expand Medicaid, despite having the largest number of uninsured residents in the country. Ninety percent matching financing from the federal government means the state is missing out on not only any benefits to individuals but fiscal benefits to local economies. This policy brief summarizes research on fiscal impacts of Medicaid expansion and the number of Texans who would be eligible for expansion, as well as how much new federal annual spending would be expected if those Texans enrolled in Medicaid.

Read The Takeaway, Medicaid Expansion’s Impact in Texas

In the news on this research:

• As COVID-19 leaves Texans jobless and lacking health insurance, lawmakers mull expanding Medicaid, The Dallas Morning News
• County-level projections of Medicaid expansion’s impact in Texas, the full Episcopal Health Foundation report
• About A Million Texans Could Gain Health Insurance This Year If Texas Expands Medicaid, Study Finds, KUT Austin
• Medicaid expansion could bring Texas $5.4 billion in federal dollars, study says, The Houston Chronicle
• Medicaid expansion could bring Texas $5.4 billion in federal dollars, study says, Midland Reporter-Telegram
• Medicaid Expansion Could Mean $5.4B in Federal Funds for TX, Health Payer Intelligence
• Bush School study estimates impact of Medicaid expansion in Texas, State of Reform

September 17: Call of the Pandemic: Rethinking Global Value Chains

By Anupam Agrawal
The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on global value chains has been pervasive. An all-time-high demand for ventilators, personal protective equipment such as masks and gowns, medicines, and other essential health supplies collided with supply shortages. Stringent lockdowns enforced by different countries at different times led to severe consequences for industrial supply chains. As the pandemic spread, few countries have been resilient enough to cope well with the pace of transformed supply and demand requirements. This policy brief explains how firms and countries need to critically evaluate their upstream supply chains and how public policy should support creating domestic core manufacturing capabilities that can help mitigate the effects of disasters.

Read The Takeaway, Call of the Pandemic: Rethinking Global Value Chains

August 7: Identity, Resilience, and Risk in the Informal Sector: Differential Effects of COVID-19 in Lagos, Nigeria

By Jessica Gottlieb
While the health effects of COVID-19 are being widely reported, less is known about the economic, social, and security impacts of the pandemic. This brief reports on the risks of and resilience to the COVID-19 pandemic among informal sector vendors in Lagos, Africa’s largest city. Their experiences are indicative of those of a large and particularly vulnerable subset of the population in the developing world—actors in the urban informal economy—who live day to day and whose economic activities are deeply impacted by the crisis.

Read The Takeaway, Identity, Resilience, and Risk in the Informal Sector: Differential Effects of COVID-19 in Lagos, Nigeria

In the news on this research:

• How the coronavirus pandemic is fueling ethnic hatred, The Washington Post

July 9: Artificial Intelligence: A Double-edged Sword

By Justin Bullock
Companies and governments throughout the world are beginning to make greater use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools for the effectiveness and efficiency gains they present. In this issue of The Takeaway, Dr. Justin Bullock describes some of the more questionable and racially biased applications of AI tools and proposes a framework for evaluating them.

Read The Takeaway, Artificial Intelligence: A Double-edged Sword

June 12: Achieving the DREAM: The Effect of IRCA on Immigrant Youth Post-Secondary Educational Access

By Tyler Tidwell
A new issue of The Takeaway describes Dr. Kalena Cortes’s research on the relationship between the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) and subsequent enrollment of immigrant youth, providing insight into potential effects and intergenerational benefits of effective immigration policy. Reducing barriers to higher education for undocumented immigrant youth can significantly improve higher educational attainment for these populations, leading to more prosperous communities. Cortes’s research found a significant increase in post-secondary enrollment among immigrant youth to whom amnesty was granted by the IRCA.

Read The Takeaway, Achieving the DREAM: The Effect of IRCA on Immigrant Youth Post-Secondary Educational Access

May 28: Sustainable Funding Options for Texas Wildlife Conservation

Student Capstone Project
Texas has an estimated need of $20 million in non-federal funding in order to receive $60 million in federal funding from the proposed Recovering America’s Wildlife Act. By exploring Texas’s political culture and surveying stakeholders, this student Capstone team report analyzes and proposes the best possible options to fund wildlife conservation based on the criteria of feasibility and sustainability.

Read The Takeaway, Sustainable Funding Options for Texas Wildlife Conservation

May 26: COVID-19 No Match for the Forces of Global Trade

By Richard Metters
COVID-19 is not only causing worldwide economic decline, it is also feeding the world-view of those who favor more isolationist policies. While de-globalization captures more than trade, economic integration is at its core. In this article, the not-so-well-known operational underpinnings of trade globalization are explored. The basic reasons why international trade has skyrocketed in the recent past point to our economic future as well.

Read The Takeaway, COVID-19 No Match for the Forces of Global Trade

May 21: Shell Games: Chinese Reverse Merger Fraud

By Benjamin Zimmer, Joseph Balmain Rodgers, and Brian Tripsa
Reverse mergers offer a quick and reliable way to gain access to the American capital markets. The ease of a reverse merger, however, also provides a loophole for nefarious actors to defraud investors. Despite Chinese companies systemically utilizing reverse mergers to defraud American capital markets of $34 billion between 2007 and 2010, regulation has yet to properly address the issue.

Read The Takeaway, Shell Games: Chinese Reverse Merger Fraud

Apr 3: Humanitarian Response to COVID-19

By Andres F. Jola-Sanchez
With unprecedented travel bans, full lockdowns, supply chain disruptions, and business shutdowns, COVID-19 is proving to be one of the most significant global threats after WWII. This issue of The Takeaway discusses challenges for developing countries along the disaster management lifecycle, and proposes public policy actions to support better disaster management strategies.

Read The Takeaway, Humanitarian Response to COVID-19: A Discussion of Challenges in Disaster Management for Developing Countries

March 31: Lobbying Battles in the Libyan War

By Reyko Huang
In many contemporary armed conflicts, belligerent parties fight not only on the battlefield, but also on the diplomatic front in the world’s capitals. In Washington and other US cities, warring groups often hire high-profile public relations professionals in order to gain access to US policymakers and influence policy. This brief, by Bush School faculty member Reyko Huang, uses the ongoing conflict in Libya to illustrate the foreign war lobby in the United States and examine why fighting groups hire American lobbyists, far from the war front.

Read The Takeaway, Lobbying Battles in the Libyan War

Feb 5: Property Buyouts After Natural Disasters: The Economic Implications for Texas Residents

By Michael Migaud
The State of Texas is prone to a myriad of natural disasters—hurricanes, tornados, floods, wildfires—that adversely affect its residents and have significant financial impacts ranging from minor repairs to complete loss of property. When the damage is severe, the most practical solution can be a public buyout of private property. This brief highlights economic and public policy implications of Texas municipalities purchasing property from residents living in areas repeatedly damaged by natural disasters. The author is a Bush School student whose work was supported by a research fellowship from The Texas Lyceum.

Read The Takeaway, Property Buyouts After Natural Disasters: The Economic Implications for Texas Residents

Jan 14: California’s Solar Rooftop Experience: An Update

By James M. Griffin
An earlier Takeaway focusing on 2010 showed the necessity of state and federal subsidies to support the adoption of residential solar rooftops. Back then, the environmental bang for the buck was poor. But now, steeply falling solar costs have changed the picture. As before, our update looks not only at the costs and benefits to the solar adopters, but also to the investor-owned electric utilities, to the government, and to the environment. Cost reductions in solar panels now make subsidies unnecessary, but electric utilities continue to face a difficult situation. Two big policy changes are needed.

Read The Takeaway, California’s Solar Rooftop Experience: An Update