davidjricardo

Hi I'm a Ph.D Economist working at a Big 12 university. While I don't use census data in my own research, I know that several of my colleagues who do are very concerned about the implementation of differential privacy in the restricted use microdata files. Some go so far as to say that it will make the American Community Survey functionally useless and if it must be implemented we should just stop collected deeper census data altogether.

As researchers, what is your opinion on differential privacy? Is it a necessary evil? Can it be avoided? Do you anticipate it causing problems in your own research?

It is because the nothing that the plan covers is very expensive.

Thank you for doing this. By way of introduction, I am a professional economist on the faculty at a Big 12 University.

Only 11% of leading Economists support Net Neutrality. Opposition to Net Neutrality has been particularly pronounced amoun regulatory economists. At least six former FCC chief Economists have publicly opposed Net Neutrality:

• Thomas Hazlett (Served under George H.W. Bush)
• Michael Katz (Served under Clinton).
• Gerald Faulhaber (Served under Bush)
• Michelle Connolly (Served two terms, under Bush and Obama)
• Tim Brennan (served under Obama, including when the OIO was passed)
• Jerry Ellig (Served under Trump).

I am unaware of any current or former FCC economist who has come out in support of the Open Internet Order. Tim Brennan, the Chief Economist of the FCC in 2015 when the Open Internet Order was originally passed has become rather infamous for calling the FCC an "Economics Free Zone." Now, that was an off-the-cuff comment and should be put into context. Here's how Brennan clarified the comment:

I do not deny saying the Open Internet Order was an “economics-free zone,” although I did not say it intending to slap the FCC. As will be apparent, I do disagree with the Order. But I do so in the belief that the FCC was pursuing its genuine view of the public interest. But now with allusions to this phrase in a judicialnt. opinion, I want to set the record straight. Economics was in the Open Internet Order, but a fair amount of the economics was wrong, unsupported, or irreleva

Michael Katz is arguably the foremost Economist working on internet regulatory issues. He served as the FCC chief Economist during the Clinton administration and is now chaired professor at Berkeley. Fully one-half of the papers cited by the Open Internet Order were written by him. Here's what Katz had to say about how the Open Internet Order cited his work:

I have always suspected that the FCC cited my papers as an inside joke, because they know how much I think net neutrality is a bad idea. In some cases, the papers were on types of discrimination that are not relevant to net neutrality. In other cases, they simply ignored results that contradicted what the FCC wanted to conclude.

Specific questions for you:

• Did you consult with any of the FCC in-house Economists or any other Economists before voting on Net Neutrality? Why or why not? If you did consult with them, what insights did they provide?

• What do you believe the role of experts should be in the setting of government policy? Do you support Chairman Pai's creation of an Office of Economics and Data at the FCC to better integrate economic analysis with the FCC decisionmaking process?

• Should FCC rules be subject to benefit-cost analysis?

I'm still confused about that guy. he asked if "Joel" knew Bobby Schuller who is a fairly well-known pastor and author who hosts the program Hour of Power that was made famous by his grandfather Robert Schuller, who founded the Crystal Cathedral in Orange County. That man was clearly not that Bobby Schuller, but if the real Olsteen knew a Bobby Schuller that's who he would know.

I can tell you why: “expert” economists rarely are experts at technology. To those of us that actually understand the technology, net neutrality is obvious and most arguments against it look pretty stupid.

This is a fair critique of expert economists in general, but not of regulatory economists. I can assure you that the Economists actually working in the area, such as Michael Katz, understand the technology quite well. On the other hand, those who understand technology, rarely understand how markets work on a deep level.

In any case, it is simply not true that to those who understand technology net neutrality is obvious and arguements against it are stupid. Here is what Robert Kahn, the guy who literally invented the internet (he developed the TCP/IP protocol), had to say about it:

Kahn rejected the term "Net Neutrality", calling it "a slogan". He cautioned against dogmatic views of network architecture, saying the need for experimentation at the edges shouldn't come at the expense of improvements elsewhere in the network.

If the goal is to encourage people to build new capabilities, then the party that takes the lead is probably only going to have it on their net to start with and it's not going to be on anyone else's net. You want to incentivize people to innovate, and they're going to innovate on their own nets or a few other nets,

I am totally opposed to mandating that nothing interesting can happen inside the net

Or, what about David Farber, the other guy that literally invented the internet(he developed the first distributed computer system):

Farber said within the next decade, much of how we use the Internet will change. In the face of such rapid change, placing limits on how firms can tier their rates for bandwidth for those who upload content onto the 'Net may be foolish.

Internet service provision is a two-sided market. Net neutrality rules tend to priviledge edge providers and the expense of service providers. It is not at all suprising that edge providers have been vocally in favor of them and service providers opposed. Neither provides any real evidence as to whether it is sound policy, nor does consumer mood affiliation with Google over and against Comcast.

one more thing: the opinions of an economics expert should not be a determining factor in limits placed on one’s personal liberty. If you don’t understand that statement then I think it is self-explanatory to the rest of us.

We've moved beyound the realm of strictly Economics here, but claiming you protect personal liberty by telling people what products they can't sell is, well, absurd.