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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:
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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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". 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. |
