Oliver Sherouse

Oliver Sherouse was the Policy Analytics Lead at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Oliver oversaw the policy analytics team, which applies modern computational techniques such as machine learning and natural language processing to the study of public policy. 

With Dr. Patrick A. McLaughlin, Oliver developed several versions of the RegData dataset, a novel measure of federal regulation. Also with Dr. McLaughlin, Oliver co-authored the 2016 report The Impact of Federal Regulations on the 50 States (available on SSRN) which introduced the FRASE Index, a measurement of federal regulatory incidence on individual states. He is also the lead developer on the open-source QuantGov framework, which enables the translation of policy text into quantitative data. For more information on RegData, FRASE, QuantGov, and other datasets produced using the QuantGov framework, visit the QuantGov project website at QuantGov.org.

Prior to joining Mercatus, Oliver worked as a policy analyst focusing on topics including the federal budget, regulation, and economic freedom. He studied history and computer science at Duke University and received his MPP from the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University.