About the Center

Government regulations seek to improve citizens’ health, safety, and financial and economic well-being. While regulations are intended to foster more efficient and equitable markets by correcting market failures, they can also impede innovation, inhibit markets, and impose additional costs on consumers and businesses if they are not formulated and implemented carefully. The importance of regulation to various policy areas has only increased as lawmakers have delegated more and more policymaking powers to regulatory agencies. Meanwhile rapid technological growth in recent decades has transformed entire industries, leading regulators across the world to propose new regulatory frameworks to govern novel technologies. The expanding scope and complexity of regulations at the local, state, national, and international level along with the need for entirely new regulatory domains warrants an expanded examination of the effects of regulation—both intended and unintended—to ensure that they are achieving their objectives while minimizing costs. It is therefore imperative to advance our understanding of rapidly changing modern-day markets and how to regulate them most effectively.

The Center on Regulation and Markets (CRM) at Brookings creates and promotes rigorous economic scholarship to inform regulatory policymaking, the regulatory process, and the efficient and equitable functioning of economic markets. The Center provides independent, non-partisan research on regulatory policy, applied broadly across microeconomic fields with a particular focus on the following areas:

Artificial intelligence and emerging technologies
Financial markets and FinTech
Regulatory process
Consumer protection and antitrust
Climate change and carbon pricing

The Center accomplishes this through a broad range of research, publications, and events that foster essential debates among preeminent academic experts, practitioners, and policymakers, with the aim of producing more efficient regulations, protecting consumers, and not overburdening firms. The Center puts particular value on emphasizing rigorous, economic research and policy analysis, while at the same time drawing on a wide range of interdisciplinary insights from a distinguished group of Brookings scholars and external contributors. The activities of the Center are currently largely organized around four major contributor series:

The Center on Regulation and Markets is supported by individuals and institutional gifts. We are grateful for the ongoing support provided by the Bernard L. Schwartz Chair in Economic Policy Development, and support from The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, The Alex C. Walker Family Foundation, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, John Mulliken (Founder, The Carbon Zero Project), Nuro, Inc., and Lyft.

BROOKINGS EXPERTS

Sanjay Patnaik, Director and Bernard L. Schwartz Chair in Economic Policy Development
Sanjay is the director of the Center on Regulation and Markets, a fellow in Economic Studies at Brookings, and the Bernard L. Schwartz Chair in Economic Policy Development. His research focuses on climate policies (specifically carbon pricing), business and government relations, corporate political strategy, globalization and international business. He is particularly interested in emissions trading programs, their role in mitigating climate change, and their effect on firm behavior. In more recent work, he focuses on how companies and governments can reduce their exposure to climate change by treating the problem as a risk management issue. Trained as an applied economist, Sanjay earned his doctorate at Harvard University. He regularly shares relevant research and news on Twitter @sanjay_patnaik.

Martin Neil Baily, Senior Fellow
Martin is a senior fellow in Economic Studies at Brookings. He returned to Brookings in September 2007 to develop a program of research on business and the economy and currently studies financial regulation and productivity growth. He is currently writing a book on a new paradigm for retirement savings. Martin is also a senior advisor to the McKinsey Global Institute and to the Albright Stonebridge Group, as well as the co-chair of the Financial Regulatory Reform Initiative of the Bipartisan Policy Center, and a member of the Squam Lake Group of financial economists.

Aaron Klein, Senior Fellow and Miriam K. Carliner Chair
Aaron is a senior fellow with the Center on Regulation and Markets and the Miriam K. Carliner Chair in Economics Studies at Brookings. He focuses on financial regulation and technology, macroeconomics, and infrastructure finance and policy. Previously, he directed the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Financial Regulatory Reform Initiative and served at the Treasury Department as deputy assistant secretary for economic policy. Prior to his appointment in 2009, he served as chief economist of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee for Chairmen Chris Dodd and Paul Sarbanes and helped secure passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.

Anton Korinek, David M. Rubenstein Fellow
Anton is a professor in the Department of Economics and the Darden School of Business of the University of Virginia, as well as a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a research affiliate at the Oxford Future of Humanity Institute’s Centre for the Governance of AI, and a senior advisor at the Partnership on AI. His current research analyzes how advances in artificial intelligence (AI) affect our economy and society. He analyzes how to steer progress in AI to lead to shared prosperity and how to prepare our society for the transformative potential of AI in the future.

Siddarth Srinivasan, Postdoctoral Fellow
Siddarth is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center on Regulation and Markets, in the Economic Studies Program at Brookings. His research focuses on forecasting mechanisms as well as the impacts of artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms on society. He has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Washington.

Clifford Winston, Senior Fellow
Cliff is a senior fellow in the Brookings Institution’s Economic Studies program and has been with Brookings since 1984. He is an applied microeconomist who specializes in the analysis of industrial organization, regulation, and transportation.

Staff

Mary King, Assistant Director
Mary oversees the Center’s projects and operations, including outreach implementation, communications, and development strategies. Prior to joining Brookings, Mary worked as an office manager at Penn State University and managed volunteer services for the American Red Cross. She is a graduate of Lebanon Valley College where she earned a B.S. in Psychology.

James Kunhardt, Senior Research Assistant
James is a senior research assistant for the Center on Regulation and Markets. Before he joined Brookings, James did work with the Biden presidential campaign on their Policy Correspondence Team. His background is in health economics, contributing to studies about the impact of the pandemic on mental health and the real economic effects of conservative versus liberal health policy. He received his B.A. in economics from Brown University, where he also completed a pre-med track.

Rayan Sud, Research Assistant
Rayan is a research assistant for the Center on Regulation and Markets. Before Brookings, his research focused on municipal electric aggregators in California. His previous projects have included India-based air quality policy research, empirical research on community-based healthcare, and legislative research. He graduated from Stanford University with a B.S. in Physics and an M.S. in Management Science and Engineering, in the Energy and Environment Track.

Nonresident Experts

Judy Chevalier, Nonresident Senior Fellow
Judith is a nonresident senior fellow in the Center on Regulation and Markets in Economic Studies and is the William S. Beinecke Professor of Economics and Finance at the Yale School of Management. She is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in the Industrial Organization program. She received her B.A. from Yale and her Ph.D. in Economics from MIT. Since that time, she has served on the faculties of Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and Yale.

Robert E. Litan, Nonresident Senior Fellow
As an economist and attorney, Robert has had over four decades of experience in the worlds of the law, economic research and policy, and as an executive in both the private, public and government sectors. Through his extensive publications and many speeches and testimony, he has become a widely recognized national expert in regulation, specializing in finance, antitrust economics and law; entrepreneurship; and international trade, among other policy subjects. He currently is a Partner with Korein Tillery, a law firm based in St. Louis and Chicago specializing in large case antitrust litigation and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. During his career, he has directed economic research at the Brookings Institution, the Kauffman Foundation, and Bloomberg Government.

Loni Mahanta, Nonresident Fellow
Loni is a nonresident fellow with the Center on Regulation and Markets at Brookings where she focuses on tech policy and emerging tech. She is a regulatory, legal, and policy executive whose leadership helps businesses craft winning strategies when industries face uncertainty. She currently serves as the Vice President, Policy and Government Affairs at OpenSea.io, the world’s largest NFT marketplace, where she sets OpenSea’s public policy priorities and shapes effective strategies for furthering goals. Previously, she served as Vice President, Government Relations and Public Policy at Zillow Group. She also spent six years at Lyft, most recently serving as the Vice President of Policy Development and Research where she successfully translated business objectives into actionable legislation at the local, state, and national levels.

Timothy G. Massad, Nonresident Senior Fellow
Timothy is a nonresident senior fellow with the Center on Regulation and Markets at Brookings, a research fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown Law School, and a consultant on financial regulatory and FinTech issues. Previously, he served as chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 2014-2017 and as the assistant secretary for Financial Stability of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Warwick J. McKibbin, Nonresident Senior Fellow
Warwick is a nonresident senior fellow with the Center on Regulation and Markets at Brookings. He is also a distinguished professor of Economics and Public Policy and director of the Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis (CAMA) in the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University (ANU). He serves as director of policy engagement and ANU Node Leader of the Australian Research Council, Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR), and director of research at McKibbin Software Group Pty Ltd. Warwick is a distinguished public policy fellow of the Economic Society of Australia; a distinguished fellow of the Asia and Pacific Policy Society; and a fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (London).

Robert Seamans, Nonresident Senior Fellow
Robert is a nonresident senior fellow with the Center on Regulation and Markets at Brookings. He is also an associate professor at the NYU Stern School of Business and director of its Center for the Future of Management. Previously he served as the senior economist for Technology and Innovation on the White House Council of Economic Advisers. His research interests include the economic and organizational consequences of AI, robots, and other technologies, and government policies that shape the adoption and use of these technologies. He is the editor of the series, The Economics and Regulation of Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies. He regularly shares relevant research and news on Twitter @robseamans.

Johannes Urpelainen, Nonresident Senior Fellow
Johannes is a nonresident senior fellow with the Center on Regulation and Markets at Brookings. He is also the director and Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Professor of Energy, Resources and Environment at Johns Hopkins SAIS and the founding director of the Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy (ISEP). He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan in 2009 and spent the next eight years at Columbia University. Johannes is the award-winning author of four books and over a hundred refereed articles on environmental politics, energy policy, and global governance. He teaches action-oriented classes on energy and environmental policy to equip the next generation of global leaders with deep knowledge, advanced analytical skills — and a passion for transformational social change. As one of the world’s top energy policy experts, Johannes frequently advises governments, international organizations, and the private sector on energy and environment. He is an editor and contributor for the series, Reimagining Modern-day Markets and Regulations. He regularly shares relevant research and news on Twitter @jurpelai.

Peter J. Wilcoxen, Nonresident Senior Fellow
Peter is a nonresident senior fellow in the Center on Regulation and Markets in Economic Studies. He is a professor in the Department of Public Administration and International Affairs, as well as a Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor for Teaching Excellence at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. He is also the director of the Maxwell School’s Center for Environmental Policy and Administration. Peter’s principal area of research is the effect of environmental and energy policies on economic growth, international trade, and the performance of individual industries. His work often involves the design, construction, and use of large-scale intertemporal general equilibrium models.

External CONTRIBUTORS

Reeve T. Bull, Administrative Conference of the United States
Reeve is the research director at the Administrative Conference of the United States. He previously worked as an attorney at Gibson Dunn in DC. He has written on numerous topics, including comparative administrative law, law and technology, benefit-cost analysis in agency rulemaking, and presidential oversight of the rulemaking process. He is a contributor for the Series on Regulatory Process and Perspectives.

Bridget C. E. Dooling, George Washington University
Bridget is a research professor with the GW Regulatory Studies Center. Previously, she was a deputy chief, senior policy analyst, and attorney for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB). She is a contributor for the Series on Regulatory Process and Perspectives.

Benjamin Cedric Larsen, World Economic Forum
Benjamin is AI/ML Project Lead at the World Economic Forum’s Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in San Francisco. Benjamin is also a Ph.D. Fellow at Copenhagen Business School (CBS) and was a visiting researcher at Stanford’s Asia Pacific Research Center from 2019-2020 and The Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing from 2018-2019. Benjamin’s research focuses broadly on ‘AI Governance,’ including industrial policy, AI regulation, and AI innovation.

Anne Joseph O’Connell, Stanford University
Anne, a lawyer and social scientist, is the Adelbert H. Sweet Professor of Law at Stanford University and a contributor to the Series on Regulatory Process and Perspective. She has written on a number of topics, including agency rulemaking, the selection of agency leaders, and bureaucratic organization (and reorganization). She is currently writing a book, Stand-Ins, on temporary leaders in government, business, and religion. He is a contributor to the Series, The Economics and Regulation of Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies.

Rachel Augustine Potter, University of Virginia
Rachel is an associate professor of Politics at the University of Virginia and a contributor to the Series on Regulatory Process and Perspective. Her research interests include American political institutions, regulation, public policy, public administration, and the influence of separation of powers on bureaucratic decision-making.

Connor Raso, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board
Connor serves as senior associate general counsel at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and is a contributor to the Series on Regulatory Process and Perspective. He is a lawyer and social scientist with deep experience in federal administrative law and regulatory practice, securities law, federal consumer financial law, cost-benefit analysis, banking law, and empirical analysis.

Alberto Rossi, Georgetown University
Alberto is a Professor of Finance at the McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University. He is also the Director of the AI, Analytics, and Future of Work Initiative at Georgetown. His research interests include FinTech, Household Finance, Machine Learning, and Asset Pricing. He is a contributor to the Series, The Economics and Regulation of Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies.

Joshua A. Tucker, New York University
Joshua A. Tucker is Professor of Politics at New York University, Director of NYU’s Jordan Center for Advanced Study of Russia, co-Director of the NYU Center for Social Media and Politics. His research focuses on the intersection of social media and politics, as well as mass political behavior in post-communist countries. His most recent book is the co-edited Social Media and Democracy: The State of the Field (Cambridge University Press, 2020). He is also a Senior Advisor at Kroll and a Kroll Institute Fellow. He is a contributor to the Series, The Economics and Regulation of Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies.

Philip A. Wallach, AEI
Phil is a senior fellow at AEI and serves as the editor of the Series on Regulatory Process and Perspective. He studies America’s separation of powers, with a focus on regulatory policy issues and the relationship between Congress and the administrative state and was previously a senior fellow at Brookings. He is the author of To the Edge: Legality, Legitimacy, and the Responses to the 2008 Financial Crisis (2015).