PERC's areas of expertise include:

PERC is a global leader in information-led development, the use of robust sets of information to enable economic development and asset building on a massive scale. See the project page for more information.

Since 2003, PERC scholars have lectured policy makers on six continents -- from the World Bank to the United States Congress -- on the use of non-financial payment information, such as energy utility and rental payments, for credit scoring and asset building, also known as alternative data. For more information on this signature issue, please see the project page.

PERC has pioneered the use of credit file and other data sets to track the economic effects of natural disasters and other exogenous shocks, as well as evaluating recovery efforts. Most recently, PERC examined economic recovery in the Gulf Coast after the 2005 hurriances.

Projects in this category consider the interplay between technological and educational endowments, regulatory regimes, and economic development. Projects in this category have examined the relationship between a variety of factors—from cross-border data flows to credit reporting systems—and how these factors affect developing and developed world economic performance.

These activities are focused on the phenomenon of worldwide sourcing (better known as offshore outsourcing) and examining its economic impact domestically and abroad. PERC places particular emphasis on how cross-border data flows, data security practices, and legal frameworks for data protection may affect worldwide sourcing patterns.