Activities
The Political and Economic Research Council (PERC) is a non-partisan
centrist policy institute devoted to research, public education, and
outreach on public policy matters. PERC has a broad mandate but
emphasizes issues related to information policy, credit access, and the
global information economy.
Mission and Activities
PERC aims to improve the quality of public debate and policy matters
concerning some of the most pressing challenges of our time by using
original and existing research. Our goal is to educate and engage policy
makers, consumers, industry, and the larger public, in the firm belief that
a better informed polity makes better decisions.
PERC's mandate is to examine the interplay between regulatory
regimes, industry practices, and the markets in which they operate. In
particular PERC emphasizes issues where the use or misuse of data may
have an effect on markets, consumers, and economies.
PERC activities fall under three headings:
Research, the execution of original studies, and the review of
existing academic literature, that falls within our stated mandate;
Education, the dissemination and distillation of findings to the
broader public;
And, Outreach, the dissemination of study findings to policy makers
and thought-leaders in industry and academia.
This three-tiered approach is based on a belief that top-notch
research is of little or no value if it does not percolate beyond
academia. And typically, any topic engaged by PERC go through this
three-part treatment. Topics for research, education, and outreach, are
selected by PERC staff with the counsel of supporters and our Board of
Advisors.
Specifically our areas of research to date have included the
following.
Consumer credit access in the United States -- A series of
projects examining the way various forms of consumer debt (i.e. credit
card debt, mortgages, and auto loans) are priced and distributed (across
socio-demographic tiers) in the United States.
Dataflows and Global Development -- Projects in this category
consider the interplay between technological and educational
endowments, regulatory regimes, and economic development. Projects in
this category have examined the relationship between a variety of
factors--from cross-border data flows to credit reporting systems--and
how these factors affect developing and developed world economic
performance.
Data Security -- Projects in this category are devoted to the
increasingly politicized issue of consumer data security. PERC
activities include quantitative study and field research assessing the
quality of data security provided by firms. And PERC also examines the
adequacy of legislative and industry initiated approaches to securing
consumer data, both domestically and abroad.
Worldwide Sourcing -- These activities are focused on the
phenomenon of worldwide sourcing (better known as offshore outsourcing)
and examining its economic impact domestically and abroad. PERC places
particular emphasis on how cross-border data flows, data security
practices, and legal frameworks for data protection may affect worldwide
sourcing patterns.
Media Concentration and Convergence -- PERC projects in this area
are devoted to the idea that media consolidation will lead to less
viewpoint diversity in media, undermining the quantity and quality of
information available to the public with harmful consequences for our
nation's democratic discourse and lead to the emergence of an
"Information Divide".
Data Privacy -- While many of PERC's areas of research implicate
issues of data privacy, this heading covers data privacy topics that do
not fall under other existing categories. Projects in this area include
examinations of consumer attitudes towards solicitation and direct
marketing, irrespective of marketing channel.
