Economist comes from University of Maryland

FTC chair Joseph Simons has tapped University of Maryland economics professor Andrew Sweeting to succeed Bruce H. Kobayashi as director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Economics starting in January.

Michael Vita, deputy director of the bureau stepping in as acting director in the interim.

Kobayashi is leaving to return to George Mason University.

The bureau advises the commissioners and staff on economic policy and oversees economic analysis. Kobayashi has been with the FTC since 2018.

Sweeting has been with the university since 2013 researching, among other things, the effects of mergers on price and variety of products and the consumer benefits of targeted advertising, a big issue before the commission with the spotlight on the competitive impact of dominant edge providers and their use of data for targeted ads.