Lobbyists generally are great at communicating ideas but lack the skills or desire to retrieve and analyze data. Government agencies often are overworked and do not have the ability to handle special projects assigned to them by the legislature.

Our work in the legislative arena provides lobbyiests and governments with the economic research necessary to address current public policy issues.

As one example of our work, the Florida's Governor's Office under Chiles was legislatively mandated to recommend what Florida should do with its foreign offices. Were the current offices justified? What were the trends in Florida's foreign trade? Where should Florida have its offices? Why? Our research report showed the Florida foreign offices were not optimized relative to our trade patterns and suggested alternative locations to maximize Floridian's economic benefits.

A second public policy project was that, in the 1990s, Florida's Governor introduced a new health plan: Florida Health Security. Business leaders in the Florida Chamber of Commerce wanted to know if the plan made sense. Were the Governor's numbers valid? Which and how many Floridians would be affected? And the bottom-line: what could that mean in terms of new taxes? KEC's analysis identified the weaknesses with the Governor's plan and helped them argue for more economically efficient legislation.