Veronique de Rugy explains at National Review Online why she supports one addition to the federal government bureaucracy.
Under the leadership of Chairman Pai, the FCC just released a proposed Order to create an Office of Economics and Analytics. The office would provide an important and systematic feedback during the regulation-making process on whether a real problem exists that regulation might solve, as well as about what the costs and benefits of proposed rules and orders. The feedback is clearly lacking today not for lack of economists working at the FCC but because as the chairman noted in a speech in April:
“[E]conomists are not systematically incorporated into policy work at the FCC. Instead, their expertise is typically applied in an ad hoc fashion, often late in the process. There is no consistent approach to their use.”
In other words, the FCC hires economists but does not always use their specific skills to of systematically informing the regulatory decision making process about what we theoretically and empirically know works or doesn’t work, what the expected costs and unintended consequences of rule may be, and whom the winners and losers should be expected to be. …
… Good for the FCC. Hopefully, this will inspire and influence changes in other federal agencies. Unfortunately, there are many instances where bureaucrats ignore economics entirely when making decisions that will affect millions of American individuals and companies.
