WASHINGTON—Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr has appointed Jonathan Williams as the regulator’s chief economist.
Williams assumes the new role in addition to serving as chief of the FCC’s Office of Economics and Analytics.
Williams was an economics professor and the director of the Center for Regulatory and Industrial Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The FCC chief economist advises the chair, commissioners and bureaus and offices and works within the agency’s Office of Economics and Analytics.
“I’m excited that Dr. Williams will lend his talents to the FCC as we continue to integrate economic analysis into our decision-making,” Carr said. “Dr. Williams’ record of distinguished scholarship in the academic sector in addition to his extensive research makes him the right person for this job. I look forward to drawing on his advice and counsel as we advance the Commission’s agenda and support President Trump’s America First agenda to increase economic opportunity for American businesses.”
Williams joined UNC-Chapel Hill as an assistant professor in 2015 and has been a professor of economics there since 2022. In this role, he also served as the director of the Center for Regulatory and Industrial Studies (CRIS), which was founded within the economics department to support research related to industrial organization and data science. Additionally, he served as an academic affiliate for the International Center for Law & Economics. Prior to UNC, he worked as an assistant professor of economics at the University of Georgia as well as an instructor at the University of Virginia.
Williams’ research has focused on industrial organization and applied econometrics. His research has been published in numerous academic journals and presented in many seminars over the past decade. He holds both a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and a Bachelor of Science in applied mathematics from Ohio University, as well as a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Virginia.
