Conflicts of interests and corruption are pervasive in every sphere of life in every country. Such practices are hardly the domain of politicians and bureaucrats. I have blogged on several occasions drawing attention to such practices in the corporate sector.
They are just as much pervasive in academia. This post is about academia, which ironically enough studies such trends.
I blogged earlier about the pro-industry lobbying work of Global Anti-Trust Institute (GAI), located within the George Mason University (GMU). The GAI, part of the Antonin Scalia Law School at GMU, and bankrolled by the likes of Amazon, Google and Qualcomm, organises conferences and workshops for regulators from across the world and within the US, where they advocate that the best way to foster competition is to maintain a hands-off approach to anti-trust law. It highlights the systematic way in which the Institute infiltrates and establishes its hegemony over important regulators and other oversight systems.
This draws attention to corporate influence within US academia and the mechanisms of its operation. Donate to institutions within reputed universities, get favourably disposed academicians to leadership positions, and work them to use the platform to influence the agenda on issues the donors care. The influence peddling happens through ostensibly rigorous research papers and thought leadership articles, workshops and seminars etc.
Elizabeth Warren has described it as "thinly disguised lobbying". She says, "Think tank comes up with the research that just so happens to advance the interests of the corporation. The think tank then takes it to the US Congress and hands it around. What's really happening is that the corporation has both hidden what it is doing and it has also bought the glossy name of independence of that think tank. My view is that it is thinly disguised lobbying but lobbying nonetheless, doing it under the pretence that this is independent research"! But such "independent" influence peddling to US legislators by corporate interests is pervasive and difficult to observe.
George Mason University is no stranger to such influence peddling. Its Mercatus Centre, a leading libertarian research and advocacy think tank directed by Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution Blog, has courted controversies due to the influence multi-billionaire Charles Koch. The Koch Brothers' long history of buying political influence, and that too aggressively and egregiously so, is well known. Their involvement with the Mercatus Centre has been similarly conflicted. Charles Koch is the largest donor to the Centre and three out of the six external members on the Centre's Board are or were affiliated with Koch Industries.
The Mercatus Centre itself suffers from several potential conflicts of interests. It takes money from many major Big Tech companies (for example, Google) and their founders (for example, Peter Thiel). If one followed only the Marginal Revolution blog one cannot but not come away with the impression that Big Tech and big corporations in the US are doing great and not get an inkling that there were several serious issues of concern about them that required at least a debate. It is difficult to not come away with the impression that the Centre (and the GAI) are effectively academic amplifiers for certain corporate interests.
But GMU is just a representative sample here among US universities and affiliated centres. Leading Washington think tanks have been accused of influence peddling in the guise of research and scholarship, for both corporate interests and foreign powers. See this and this about how Google pressured Anne Marie Slaughter and New America Foundation to fire a Google critic from the Foundation.
Here is a list of conflicts of interests which are surprisingly common in economics and international development.
1. Researchers closely identified with advocating being sympathetic to a hypothesis (say, cash transfers, graduation, teaching at right level, education technology etc) go about doing more experiments and research that validate their hypothesis. Most often, if not always, there is a selection bias at work. At some point in time, it becomes difficult to figure out whether they are advocates for specific ideas or dispassionate researchers advocating evidence-based policy making.
2. Researchers enlist implementers (or the primary stakeholders) as Principal Investigators in field experiments. This is almost like having a third party evaluation of a road project being done by a group consisting of the contractor building the road.
3. Researchers establish non-profit organisations that promote specific ideas/hypothesis. They also raise money to support the organisation's work, simultaneously evaluate their own projects, and use the positive evaluation results to mobilise yet more funding for those organisations. Rarely is there a clear disclosure that highlights such disturbing conflict of interest.
4. In some cases, the same researchers go one step further and spin-off for-profit entities that provide an important ancillary service for the innovation. In other words, they personally profit from the innovation that their research promotes, and often directly from public financed aid spending.
5. Researchers who act as gatekeepers to reputed research publications exhibit selection bias in what types of research works get approved for publication. Similarly, reputed researchers advice PhD students and there is considerable signalling value in having a reputed advisor. Both these assume disproportionate importance since paper publications are a critical determinant of academic hiring decisions and promotions.
It is easy enough to place names and specific details in each of the cases. And they involve some of the most reputed names in the academic world.
In the bureaucracy, among the honest and upright officials, the equivalent to many of the aforementioned practices would be deeply repugnant and considered examples of outright corruption. But clearly what is sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander!
No comments:
Post a Comment