Stay ConnectedPodcast of the Technology Policy Institute of Washington, D.C.
The Technology Policy Institute is a think tank that focuses on the economics of innovation, technological change, and related regulation in the United States and around the world. Our mission is to advance knowledge and inform policymakers by producing independent, rigorous research and by sponsoring educational programs and conferences on major issues affecting information technology and communications policy.
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Dr. Mary Shirley is President of the Ronald Coase Institute, a nonprofit organization working to improve knowledge of institutions and to build the capacity of young scholars to analyze and overcome institutional problems in their own countries. Mary has a PhD in economics and has worked for over 30 years in development, including over 20 years as a research manager in the World Bank. She's author of numerous scholarly articles and books on institutional issues and economic development. She's also written on reform of state owned enterprises, including telecom, water, and more.
On our first completely internal podcast! Today, we're just going to take stock of the tech policy landscape. We'll talk mostly about the $1.9 trillion stimulus and a little bit of antitrust, and we'll figure out what we know and don't know. Hopefully, we'll have more of the know than don't know, but I don't know what the over-under is on those odds.
Jeff Prince is Professor and Chair of Business Economics and Public Policy at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. He's also the Harold A. Poling Chair in Strategic Management and Co-Director of the Institute for Business Analytics at Kelley. He recently served as Chief Economist at the Federal Communications Commission. His primary research focus is on technology markets and telecommunications, having published works on dynamic demand for computers, internet adoption and usage, the inception of online-offline product competition, and much, much more.
Paul Barrett is Deputy Director of the Center for Business and Human Rights at the NYU Stern School of Business. He joined the center in September of 2017 after working for more than three decades as a journalist and author, focusing on the intersection of business law and society. Most recently, he worked for 12 years for Bloomberg BusinessWeek, and prior to that from 1986 to 2005, he wrote for the Wall Street Journal. He is the co-author of a recent publication from the Center for Business and Human Rights titled “False Accusation: The Unfounded Claim That Social Media Companies Censor Conservatives,” obviously a very timely subject.
Today, we are delighted to have Professor Tom Hazlett. Tom was one of our very first guests back when we launched the podcast, and we're delighted to have him back for an encore performance. He holds the H.H. McCaulay Endowed Chair in Economics at Clemson and also serves as the Director of Clemson's Information Economy Project. He studies law and economics specializing in the information economy. He served as Chief Economist at the FCC and has held faculty positions at UC Davis, Columbia, Wharton, and George Mason. His research has appeared in countless peer-review journals and law reviews. That's countless by me, because I haven't counted, but it's a large number. He also writes in the popular press with articles in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, the New Republic, the Economist, Slate, and the Financial Times, where he was a columnist on tech policy from 2002 to 2011. His latest book, The Political Spectrum: The Tumultuous Liberation of Wireless Technology, was published in 2017. Tom is on TPI's Board of Academic Advisors. We are very grateful for that, and Tom is also one of Sarah's advisors and a former boss.
Professor Justin (Gus) Hurwitz is an associate professor of law at the University of Nebraska, where he is also the Menard Director of the Nebraska Governance and Technology Center and the Co-Director of the Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program. He is also the Director of Law & Economics Programs at the International Center for Law & Economics, where he works to incorporate economic tools into legal and regulatory analysis. He has particular expertise in telecommunications law and technology, including data- and cybersecurity. Professor Hurwitz has a background in technology having worked at Los Alamos National Lab and interned at the Naval Research Lab prior to law school, and he held an Internet2 Land Speed World Record with the Guinness Book of World Records. Professor Hurwitz received his JD from the University of Chicago Law School, was a Trial Attorney with the DOJ’s Antitrust Division in the Telecommunications and Media Enforcement Section, and his legal scholarship has been cited widely by the popular press and government agencies.
Cathryn Ross has worn many hats during her life. She's currently Director of Regulatory Affairs at the BT group, which is the largest provider of fixed-line broadband and mobile services in the UK. She's held key positions in regulation and the UK government and also worked in the private sector. Previously, she served as CEO of the Water Services Regulation Authority in the UK. Cathryn was also recently asked to chair the UK Regulatory Horizons Council, and that's going to be the subject of today's discussion or at least some of the work that the Council is doing.
Nick Hart is one of the world's experts in telling people how to get evidence-based policy to work in real-time. He's also the CEO of the Data Coalition. He helped shape the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act, and those of us in the know sometimes call it “the Evidence Act,” and he's worked with numerous agencies and Congress to improve data evaluation and privacy policies. Before that, Nick directed the Bipartisan Policy Center's Evidence Project and was also a civil servant at the Office of Management and Budget.
Greg Rosston is the Gordon Cain Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and Director of the Public Policy Program at Stanford. He served as Deputy Chief Economist at the Federal Communications Commission, working on implementing the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and helped design and implement the first ever spectrum auction in the United States. He co-chaired the Economy, Globalization and Trade Committee for the Obama Campaign and was a member of the Obama Transition Team focusing on economic agency review and energy policy. He received his PhD in economics from Stanford and his AB in economics from Berkeley. Among his many extracurricular activities, he also serves as an advisory board member for A Sustainable Conservation and the Nepal Youth Opportunity Fund.
Today we are joined by Giulia McHenry and Wayne Leighton, who are respectively Chief and Deputy Chief of the FCC’s Office of Economics and Analytics. The new office—OEA—is a major initiative of the current FCC and was established almost exactly two years ago. Giulia came to her current position after serving as Chief Economist at the NTIA. Prior to that, she focused on telecommunications issues at a well-known economics consulting firm. Giulia holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Maryland. Wayne previously served as Chief of the Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis at the FCC, and as a Senior Economist at the Wireless Bureau and as a Wireless Advisor to Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate. Outside of the FCC, he has worked as an economist for the Senate Banking Committee, an economics consulting firm, and as professor of Economics at the Universidad Francisco Americana in Guatemala. He holds a PhD in Economics from George Mason.
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