Babette Boliek

Professor Babette Boliek joined the Pepperdine faculty in 2009 and conducts research in the fields of antitrust law, telecommunications, privacy law, and sports law. As an expert in the fields of economics and communications law, Professor Boliek was selected and served as the Chief Economist of the Federal Communications Commission from 2018 to 2019. Her research has been published in academic publications and law reviews such as Boston College Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Fordham Law Review, Hastings Law Journal, and the Review of Industrial Organization. Professor Boliek earned her BA with distinction from California State University, Chico, her JD from Columbia University School of Law, and her PhD in Economics from the University of California, Davis. While at Columbia, she was both a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and a John M. Olin Fellow for Law and Economics. Her doctoral, and much of her subsequent research, has focused on the theoretical and quantitative analysis of legal issues in the U.S. communications industry. Professor Boliek clerked for the Honorable Michael B. Mukasey of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and is admitted to practice law in the State of New York.

Prior to joining the faculty, Professor Boliek served as a Senior Fellow at the Information Economy Project at George Mason University School of Law. In this position, she combined her background in law with her education in economics to analyze media, the Internet, and telecommunications issues. Professor Boliek’s work at George Mason drew upon, and extended, her prior work as a Fellow for the Center for Communication Law and Policy, a joint research venture of the University of Southern California Gould School of Law and the Annenberg School of Communication. In addition to her scholarly research at Pepperdine, Professor Boliek has been a Visiting Scholar for the American Enterprise Institute, regularly posting blogs for AEI.org on a variety of technology and telecommunications related issues.