Staff
James Broughel
Senior Research Advisor, Office for Fiscal and Regulatory Analysis
Our intuition about the future is linear. But the reality of information technology is exponential, and that makes a profound difference. If I take 30 steps linearly, I get to 30. If I take 30 steps exponentially, I get to a billion.
- Ray Kurzweil
James Broughel serves as a senior research advisor in the Office for Fiscal and Regulatory Analysis at AFPI. He is an economist specializing in regulation, cost-benefit analysis, and the intersection of innovation and public policy.
Broughel previously served as a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, where his work focused on how regulatory policy affects dynamic sectors such as energy and artificial intelligence. In 2024, he was a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, contributing to the State and Local Governance Initiative’s program on small-business regulation. At George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, he helped develop the State RegData index, a tool designed to track and compare regulatory environments across U.S. states.
Broughel has published in academic journals such as Regulation & Governance, Contemporary Economic Policy, and the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy: Federalist Edition. His commentary has appeared in national media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post. He is also a regular columnist for Forbes and the author of the book Regulation and Economic Growth: Applying Economic Theory to Public Policy. Broughel earned a doctorate in economics from George Mason University. He grew up in Newton, Massachusetts.