Signs Point to Economics' Resurgent Importance in FCC Decisions, AEI Says
Consumers and industry benefit from economists "again hav[ing] a voice" at the FCC, American Enterprise Institute visiting scholar Mark Jamison blogged Tuesday. The role of economics dwindled in recent years, judging by the number of working papers and economic symposiums…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
from the Office of Strategic Planning, he said. That decline in economic analysis shows up in the 2015 net neutrality order and 2016 set-top box proceeding, Jamison said. A paper in this month's Review of Industrial Organization by FCC economists about the role economic analysis played in the Communications Act Title II rollback, the "hedonic pricing model" in the international broadband data report and formation of the Office of Economics and Analytics is a signpost of returning "to the days when FCC economists made the regulatory community uncomfortable by pointing out where present practices and forward-looking economics are out of step," he said.