Chairman Pai Announces New FCC Chief Economist

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced the appointment of Babette Boliek as chief economist for the Federal Communications Commission. Dr. Boliek currently serves as a professor of law and the associate dean of faculty research at Pepperdine University School of Law. Dr. Boliek earned her doctorate in economics from the University of California, Davis, and her law degree from Columbia University School of Law. Currently, Dr. Boliek’s research at Pepperdine focuses on applied economic and legal analysis in the areas of Internet regulation, competition and antitrust, privacy, and the mobile telecommunications industry. Her teaching responsibilities have included antitrust law and policy, communications law, corporations, and contract law. Dr. Boliek has served as a fellow with the Information Economy Project at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School and with the Center for Communications Law and Policy at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. She also has been a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. She is expected to start her work at the FCC in August.