The shift to data-driven growth is one of the most important forces behind the strong performance of the U.S. economy in recent years. Online sales are up by 16% over the past year, and Americans are getting more and more of their information online. Indeed, data-related products and services account for roughly 30% of real personal consumption growth since 2007, second only to the 40% coming from the growth of healthcare-related goods and services.
Yet regulators are struggling to keep up with the digital age. The accumulation of regulations designed for a slower, information-poor age fail to take advantage of new opportunities to improve outcomes while still protecting consumers. The issue of how to regulate in the data-driven economy has been widely discussed, including in several policy papers by the Progressive Policy Institute. For example, our proposal for a Regulatory Improvement Commission, designed to relieve the build-up of outdated and duplicative regulations over time, has been written into legislation and introduced in both the House and Senate.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in particular, is facing a variety of regulatory issues which involve the intersection between the data-driven economy and the more traditional world of health-related regulations. For example, the FDA took a carefully balanced approach in its rule making on mobile medical applications, choosing to exercise enforcement discretion, instead of regulating apps that do not track medical information, such as counting calories.
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