Is Autonomy Possible and Is It a Good Thing?

Recently, Citro et al. published an article focusing on the autonomy, or lack of same, of the 13 principle statistical agencies of the United States. The authors are to be congratulated for raising an important topic—the concept of autonomy. Among their conclusions are: (a) existing autonomy protections are inadequate, (b) a lack of professional autonomy unduly exposes the principal federal statistical agencies to efforts to undermine the objectivity of their products and (c) agencies cannot completely rebuff these efforts. Their main recommendations are that the role of the Chief Statistician be strengthened and new statutory autonomy protections be legislated. Here, we consider the meaning of autonomy for a federal agency in general and for federal statistical agencies in particular. Additionally, we consider the benefits and limitations of autonomy for federal statistical agencies. We note that while additional legislation is useful to produce required autonomy, a powerful tool—and one which is possibly more readily available—is effective leadership. Finally, we suggest that the process used to select the leaders of the statistical system needs to be fundamentally changed.