Engaging economics researchers to improve regulatory analysis

Abstract

U.S. federal regulatory policy is, and should be, informed by economics research. Strengthening engagement between economists and agency analysts can help generate research questions to inform policy and enhance agencies’ analytical capacities. We review challenges to improving such engagement and lay out an agenda for both researchers and agencies on better integrating economics research into the regulatory process. Researchers can take advantage of analytical “to-do lists” recently published by agencies to identify important unresolved questions and make use of a variety of existing ways to engage with agencies on those questions. We recommend that agencies continue to publicize research needs, find additional ways to break down barriers between researchers and analysts, and incentivize policy-informative research by highlighting when research is cited in agency analyses. Both groups can also work to keep each other informed about the frontier of economics research and its application to policy problems. Given the longstanding importance of economics research to the regulatory process, further improving engagement between these two groups can facilitate better policy decisions.