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Alex Mechanick

Assistant Professor, School of government and policy

  • Hopkins Bloomberg Center
    555 Pennsylvania Ave NW
    Washington, DC
  • Faculty
  • J.D. , Yale Law School
  • A.B. Economics and Philosophy , Brown University

Alex Mechanick researches problems that sit at the intersection of economics, law, and public policy. 

His recent work has focused on reforming administrative procedure, benefit-cost analysis, and the structure of the executive branch. Previously, he served in government as part of the front office of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget, the Senate Judiciary Committee staff of Senator Blumenthal, and the Global Modeling Studies section of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. Before joining the School of Government and Policy, he was a senior policy analyst at the Niskanen Center.

Mechanick holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and an A.B. in Economics and Philosophy from Brown University.

  1. Lost in Transition: How Trade Adjustment Assistance came up short (and where it succeeded)

    Lost in Transition: How Trade Adjustment Assistance came up short (and where it succeeded)

    By prioritizing robust reforms to our existing unemployment and workforce systems that benefit all workers — not just those who can prove that their jobs were eliminated due to AI — Congress can help the U.S. workforce retool without repeating the mistakes of TAA.

    04.06.2026

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  2. Engaging economics researchers to improve regulatory analysis

    Engaging economics researchers to improve regulatory analysis

    The report recommends that agencies continue to publicise research needs, find additional ways to break down barriers between researchers and analysts, and incentivise policy-informative research by highlighting when research is cited in agency analyses.

    02.02.2026

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  3. HOME field advantage: Leveraging HUD dollars to build more housing

    HOME field advantage: Leveraging HUD dollars to build more housing

    The single most impactful action HUD could take to expand supply would be to allow states to preempt local density restrictions for projects funded by the HOME and the Housing Trust Fund (HTF) programs.

    10.08.2025

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  4. How to fix the Paperwork Reduction Act

    How to fix the Paperwork Reduction Act

    The Paperwork Reduction Act was enacted to reduce unnecessary paperwork and improve policymaking. But it fails to effectively realize these goals. This paper explains how we ended up with a statute that perversely undermines its purposes, what goes wrong (and right) in the status quo, and how to design a better Paperwork Reduction Act.

    04.16.2025

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  5. The Countercyclical Benefits of Regulatory Costs

    The Countercyclical Benefits of Regulatory Costs

    Scholars and policymakers have likely missed the countercyclical benefits of regulatory costs because of informal, ad hoc macroeconomic assumptions embedded in regulatory analysis.

    08.29.2024

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  6. The Interpretive Foundations of Arbitrary or Capricious Review

    The Interpretive Foundations of Arbitrary or Capricious Review

    Scholars and judges alike will only succeed in creating a clear and workable administrative law jurisprudence when they accept and embrace the interpretive foundations of arbitrary or capricious review.

    06.01.2022

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  7. Monitoring the World Economy: A Global Conditions Index

    Monitoring the World Economy: A Global Conditions Index

    The Global Conditions Index (GCI) is a real-time measure of the health of the global economy constructed using a small set of world economic variables.

    06.15.2018

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