This week’s think tank output spans the economic fallout from geopolitical turmoil, the future of U.S. energy innovation, legal immigration trends, tax filing season data, and the challenge of AI governance. Publications from across the ideological spectrum offer competing diagnoses of what ails the American economy and divergent prescriptions for what comes next. Here is a roundup of the most notable policy papers and analyses from the week of April 13, 2026.
Brookings Institution: Global Economy Faces ‘Year of Peril’
The Brookings Institution released its April 2026 update to the TIGER indexes on April 12, authored by Eswar Prasad, Caroline Smiltneks, and Sahasra Kalwala. The Brookings-Financial Times Tracking Indexes for the Global Economic Recovery paint a sobering picture: what had been shaping up as a year of decent growth has been derailed by the Iran conflict and ongoing trade policy volatility.
The report tracks composite measures combining real activity, financial indicators, and confidence metrics for both advanced and emerging markets. Before the Iran crisis erupted, labor markets showed momentum, AI-driven investment was buoying multiple sectors, and private sector sentiment was improving. The conflict fundamentally altered the trajectory. Rising Treasury bond yields, equity price declines in vulnerable markets, and a strengthening dollar have combined to tighten financial conditions globally. Low-income nations that depend heavily on imported fertilizer, oil, and gas are identified as particularly vulnerable.
Brookings is a center-left think tank funded by a mix of foundations, corporations, and foreign governments. Its economic analysis carries weight in Democratic policy circles and among international institutions. The TIGER report serves as a useful barometer for policymakers tracking global economic momentum, though its conclusions about trade policy headwinds will read differently depending on one’s view of the administration’s tariff strategy.
American Enterprise Institute: Rethinking U.S. Energy Innovation
The American Enterprise Institute published “Contesting the Frontier: Rethinking US Energy Innovation Policy in a Semi-Settled Landscape” on April 2, authored by David M. Hart. The report challenges the conventional “endless frontier” framing of American science policy, arguing that the energy innovation landscape is better understood as a contested terrain where Chinese competitors have already established dominant positions in solar photovoltaics, batteries, and electric vehicles.
Hart identifies persistent market failures — environmental externalities, knowledge spillovers, coordination failures, and uncertainty — that continue to impede private energy innovation investment. He argues that state-supported Chinese firms have leveraged subsidies and first-mover advantages to dominate key sectors, with similar patterns threatening to emerge in advanced nuclear and other technologies. The report criticizes U.S. energy innovation tools as fragmented and siloed, noting that tax credits have been repeatedly reversed and demonstration project funding lacks coherence.
Rather than pursuing broad leadership across all energy technologies, Hart advocates what he calls “focused forays” — concentrating resources on select strategic opportunities where U.S. advantages exist and national security interests align. AEI is a center-right think tank primarily funded by conservative foundations and corporate donors. Hart’s report is notable for acknowledging the scale of the Chinese competitive threat while pushing back against the notion that the United States can simply outspend its way to energy dominance.
Cato Institute: Legal Immigration Falling Faster Than Illegal Entries
David J. Bier of the Cato Institute released a major analysis on April 13 showing that legal immigration to the United States is declining at 2.5 times the rate of illegal entry reductions. According to Bier’s data, monthly legal immigration cuts amount to approximately 132,000, compared to roughly 50,000 in monthly illegal entry reductions. Some 72 percent of all immigration reductions under the current administration target legal pathways, including family visas, student visas, and H-1B work visas.
The report identifies three primary mechanisms driving the decline: a new $100,000 H-1B visa fee that has reduced filings by at least 25 percent, combined country bans affecting 92 nations that block approximately half of prospective immigrant visa applicants, and enhanced social media screening for ideological factors. Major financial firms have reportedly experienced 10 percent drops in H-1B filings for fiscal year 2026. The National Foundation for American Policy warns these cuts could reduce the U.S. workforce by 6.8 million by 2028 and lower annual economic growth by one-third.
Cato is a libertarian think tank funded primarily by foundations associated with free-market philanthropy. Its immigration research consistently advocates for expanded legal pathways, making this report’s findings predictable in direction but nonetheless significant in scope. The data on legal immigration declines outpacing border enforcement gains raises questions about workforce implications that cut across ideological lines.
Tax Foundation: 2026 Filing Season Shows Impact of Tax Cuts
The Tax Foundation’s 2026 tax filing season tracker, authored by Kevin Kaufman and published April 1, reveals that average refunds are running significantly higher than in previous years. The average tax refund as of early March stood at $3,676, up 10.6 percent compared to $3,324 at the same point in 2025. Total IRS refunds have reached $202.6 billion, running nearly $23 billion ahead of the prior year.
The Tax Foundation attributes the increase largely to new tax cuts enacted under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Separately, the Center for American Progress released competing analysis arguing that refunds were only $346 higher than in 2025 when measured differently, and projected the average refund would fall short of the administration’s promise of $3,939 by approximately $665. The dueling analyses illustrate how the same IRS data can support divergent narratives depending on methodology and baseline assumptions.
The Tax Foundation is a center-right organization focused on tax policy, funded by foundations and corporate sponsors. CAP, founded by former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta, is a center-left institution with close ties to the Democratic Party. The contrasting interpretations of refund data offer a case study in how think tanks across the spectrum frame identical datasets to support their respective policy positions.
RAND Corporation: AI Governance and Biosecurity
RAND Corporation released multiple reports in April addressing the intersection of artificial intelligence and national security. A report published April 6 introduces a conceptual framework for AI incident reporting systems — processes for collecting information about safety- and rights-related events caused by general-purpose AI. The framework addresses institutional design considerations, including how to structure reporting mechanisms that balance transparency with proprietary concerns.
A separate RAND after-action report, also from April 6, describes exercises centered on the misuse of artificial intelligence models to generate novel biological threats. The exercises were designed to elicit policy options that could reduce risks and mitigate potential impacts. These publications build on RAND’s earlier finding that current-generation large language models do not meaningfully increase the operational risk of biological weapons attacks, while acknowledging that the threat landscape is evolving as AI capabilities advance.
RAND is a nonpartisan research organization originally established to serve the U.S. military, now funded by government contracts, foundations, and corporate clients. Its AI governance work carries particular authority given RAND’s longstanding role in defense and security analysis. The incident reporting framework arrives at a critical moment, as policymakers debate whether and how to regulate AI systems that are increasingly embedded in critical infrastructure.
Urban Institute: College Enrollment After Affirmative Action
The Urban Institute published a report on April 7 examining how college enrollment demographics have shifted since the 2023 Supreme Court decision banning race-conscious admissions. Using data from 2018 to 2024, the researchers found that enrollment changes often obscured more complex shifts in applications and admissions patterns. At research universities, the share of Black student enrollment showed a slight increase in 2024, but a larger increase in Black student applications did not translate into a proportional increase in admissions.
The report emphasizes that demographic changes in surrounding populations — not just institutional policy — drive enrollment patterns, complicating simple narratives about the ruling’s impact. The Urban Institute is a center-left research organization focused on social and economic policy, funded by government grants, foundations, and individual donors. This research is relevant to ongoing debates about educational equity and the downstream effects of the Court’s affirmative action decision.
Economic Policy Institute: Southern Manufacturing and Worker Power
The Economic Policy Institute released a report in April detailing how Southern workers and communities can leverage community benefits agreements to claim a fairer share of manufacturing growth. The report argues that CBAs — legally enforceable private agreements between companies and labor-community coalitions — can secure measurable economic benefits including higher wages, unionization protections, local hiring commitments, environmental safeguards, and affordable housing investments.
EPI frames CBAs as essential tools for reshaping the Southern economic model, where historically low unionization rates and business-friendly regulatory environments have concentrated the gains from manufacturing investment among employers and shareholders rather than workers and communities. The report positions coalition-building as a prerequisite for broader economic transformation in the region.
EPI is a left-leaning think tank closely aligned with organized labor, funded primarily by unions and progressive foundations. Its research consistently advocates for stronger worker protections and collective bargaining rights, and this report fits squarely within that tradition. The findings are relevant to ongoing debates about industrial policy and whether publicly subsidized manufacturing investments should carry labor and community conditions.
Looking Ahead: Relevance to TIJ Coverage
Several of this week’s publications intersect with The Investigative Journal’s core beats. The Cato Institute’s immigration data raises accountability questions about workforce impacts that merit further reporting. The dueling Tax Foundation and CAP analyses of refund data illustrate the importance of independent verification of administration economic claims. AEI’s energy innovation report and RAND’s AI governance framework both touch on the U.S.-China competitive landscape that continues to shape policy across multiple domains. And the Brookings TIGER report’s warning about economic peril in the wake of the Iran conflict underscores the need for sustained coverage of the war’s domestic economic consequences.