SIG Member: Dania Cortes
Due to security clearance constraints, applicants for this fellowship must be US citizens.
About this office: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC; www.fcc.gov ) is an independent agency with regulatory authority over the telecommunications and electronic media sectors, including spectrum management. The Office of Strategic Planning (OSP) is an interdisciplinary group of 20 professionals which provides analysis, policy research, and advice on the full range of issues before the agency. Economists comprise the largest share of OSP professional staff, with the rest attorneys, engineers, and policy analysts.
About the work you’ll be doing: Student fellows/interns generally work on a portfolio of projects, supporting the agency’s rulemaking, merger review, and/or data collection and analysis functions. Specific tasks could include collecting and/or “cleaning” data and, working with senior staff, performing various types of statistical analysis. Other possible tasks include summarizing and critiquing submissions in FCC proceedings, tracking relevant developments in technology and business practices through Internet research, or identifying academic literature relevant to a particular communications policy question. Through working as part of project teams, attending meetings with industry and other outside interested parties, and observing FCC meetings, the fellow will gain a detailed understanding of the operations of a regulatory agency. Our current intern’s projects include: a cross-country analysis of broadband price and service quality data to “benchmark” US performance; literature review of the economics of privacy used by senior staff in briefing the agency’s Chairman; and an assessment of the potential savings from “cord-cutting” (terminating cable television service) under varying assumptions regarding consumer demand for video services.
Desired skills or attributes: Preferably upperclassmen applicants with quantitative backgrounds.
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