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President's Column

July 2026

Stay Connected to Consequential Federal Developments with COSSA

Legislative and executive branch proposals arrive from Washington DC at an intense pace, and many proposals can hold major implications for our profession. The most current example: the Office of Management and Budget has proposed changes to the federal government’s Uniform Guidance document, which is the federal framework that governs how most academic funding opportunities are organized and administered. These proposed changes could change several major elements of the federal funding apparatus that applied economists know, including these possible scenarios:

  1. During proposal evaluation, a reduction in the relative weight placed upon a proposal’s scientific merit and an increase in the relative weight placed on alignment with administrative priorities,
  2. Allowing funded grants (or entire classes of funded grants) to be cancelled midstream at the administration’s discretion without opportunity for appeal,
  3. Not allowing grant funds to offset the cost of publishing journal articles, and
  4. Not allowing grant funds to pay for conference attendance or professional association memberships.

The second proposed change would increase uncertainty faced by multi-year grants. This could discourage investment in long-term research designs and undermine confidence in the multi-year budgeting processes upon which investigators and, increasingly, departments depend to ensure student progress and support institutional stability.

These last two proposed changes could hold major implications for the AAEA as our Association journals, conference attendance, and membership dues are critical sources of Association revenue that constitute the vast majority of operating income in any given year. While it is impossible to predict exactly how much these proposed changes would change Association revenues, passage would likely require some critical reconsideration of how the AAEA operates.

While these highly salient proposed changes leap off the pages of the Federal Register, these are only some of the 320 revisions included in this proposal, which is officially called the Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance. It would behoove each of us to review the proposed changes and submit individual comments by July 13, 2026, by using the form available at: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/05/29/2026-10817/regulation-for-federal-financial-assistance. If you have a position on these items, let your voice be heard through the public comment process.

It can be difficult to stay on top of these issues. As a member of the AAEA you have access to services of the services of the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA), a nonprofit organization working to promote and advance the social and behavioral sciences in federal policymaking. Headquartered in DC, COSSA serves as a united voice for more than 80 organizations, universities, institutes and centers who care about a successful and vibrant social science research enterprise. COSSA’s policy experts work with a broad network of advocates to ensure sustainable federal funding for social and behavioral science research and the widespread use of our sciences in policymaking.  

Accessing COSSA events or subscribing to the COSSA newsletter is as simple as going to the COSSA website (cossa.org), selecting the event or newsletter of interest, and indicating your membership in AAEA when submitting the request. In an era of a rapidly changing federal landscape, this provides AAEA members the opportunity to stay informed and act in a timely fashion as policies are proposed and reshaped.

While much is happening in DC, our collective attention now turns to KC. With the Annual Meeting convening later this month at the Downtown Marriott in Kansas City, Missouri, there are ample opportunities to stay abreast of policy issues emerging at the local, state, national and international levels; engage with leading and emerging economists on the broad array scholarship that our Association members pursue; see the Association’s best and brightest recognized for their accomplishments; renew old acquaintances; and forge new collaborations and friendships.

Our mainstage speakers offer a variety of stimulating topics with Sherry Frey, Vice President of Total Wellness of NielsenIQ, kicking off activities on Sunday evening with the Gordon Rausser Keynote Address. She will leverage deep insights from the NielsenIQ data to provide insights the emerging priorities that consumers hold for the agriculture and food sectors. AAEA’s President-elect Titus Awokuse will deliver the Presidential Address on Monday morning, providing his vision for a pathway to a more resilient and inclusive process of globalization. Tuesday provides a great double header of main stage speakers, including the Fellows Address from Spiro Stefanou, former Administrator of the USDA’s Economic Research Service, who will explore his vision for the role of data in connecting evidence to policy. Later in the day, Douglas Irwin, the John French Professor of Economics at Dartmouth, will draw upon the United States’ history of tariffs to provide context for contemporary trade issues that have often buffeted domestic agricultural markets.

See you soon in Kansas City!

Brian RoeAAEA President