Hazlett Hails Pai Proposal for Economics Office
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s proposal for a new Office of Economics and Data is a “home run,” said former FCC Chief Economist Tom Hazlett in a Technology Policy Institute blog post. Hazlett said when he held that post in 1991-92,…
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then-Chairman Al Sikes asked him whether every major rulemaking included a formal cost-benefit analysis. “I was underwhelmed,” Hazlett wrote. “I had been influenced by empirical research indicating that policy makers did not change their decisions when confronted with new economic analysis.” In the years since, Hazlett said he changed his perspective. He said his views evolved in 2011 when he wrote a paper on the topic for Resources for the Future. “The FCC, despite engaging in competition policy initiatives that frequently track the concerns of U.S. antitrust agencies, is distinct in flying naked, having no Economic Analysis Group (as does the Department of Justice Antitrust Division) or Bureau of Economics (Federal Trade Commission),” he wrote. Hazlett an economics professor at Clemson University.