The @GAI_GMU Report on the Digital Economy is out! It is 34 individual chapters written by some of the sharpest thinkers in digital policy, grouped into three thematic sections and totaling 1361 pages. I feel fortunate to have been included. THREAD https://gaidigitalreport.com/ 

My chapter asks, "Does Big Tech Need its Own Regulator?" I look at 4 key proposals for a new digital regulator: The @CMAgovUK report (which builds on @jasonfurman's work), the @StiglerCenter's report, @haroldfeld's book, and @ShorensteinCtr's report. https://gaidigitalreport.com/2020/08/25/does-big-tech-need-its-own-regulator/

Each is an interesting proposal worth reading (I esp. enjoyed @haroldfeld's), but for the lazy I summarize each. I do not evaluate their many regulatory proposals; other chapters in the GAI Report discuss those issues. I focus exclusively on arguments for a new regulatory agency.

The key potential benefit of a new agency is specialized expertise. But the four proposals struggle to define what exactly a new agency would be expert in. Most admit that defining the sector that this sector-specific agency would govern is very difficult.

On the cost side, the proposals almost entirely ignore the most serious, existential risk of a sector-specific agency: regulatory capture. All agencies tend toward capture, and sector-specific agencies even more so. A new agency could actually make things worse.

The CMA report doesn't mention regulatory capture. Feld mentions it in a different context but doesn't discuss it w/r/t a new agency. The Stigler Center report does mention that risk - and solves it by abandoning the proposal for a new agency. BUT WORSE