FCC Working Paper Shows Challenges Posed by OEA, AEI's Jamison Says
Last week’s working paper by the FCC on the organization of economists in a regulatory agency (see 1904050030) shows benefits and risks to the launch of the Office of Economics and Analytics, American Enterprise Institute Visiting Scholar Mark Jamison blogged…
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Tuesday. “Forming the OEA doesn’t come without costs,” Jamison wrote: “As the FCC economists found in their reviews of other studies, separating out the economists makes it harder for them to influence regulations being developed elsewhere in their agencies, such as those developed in the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications, Wireline Competition, and Media bureaus.” Forming the OEA was a good idea and will mean better economic analysis, Jamison said: But FCC “economists and commissioners will have to work hard to make sure the improved analytical quality results in improved regulations.” Umair Javed, aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, raised concerns about the study in a tweet. “What does credibility look like?” he asked. “Peer review. Posting complete datasets and code online. Reproducibility. Reliance on experimental data over empirical or observational data. Recognizing when statistical power is too low and where there is bias toward exaggerating effect sizes.”