The CFPB recently released a Report on Actions Taken to Implement Gold Standard Science that addresses steps the CFPB has taken and plans to take to implement the May 2025 Executive Order entitled “Restoring Gold Standard Science” (GSS) and subsequent guidance issued to federal agencies.
In the introductory portions of the Report, the CFPB advises as follows:
“Until the CFPB adopts formal policies and procedures governing the production and use of scientific information, CFPB staff are developing policies and procedures to help ensure that the scientific information produced and used by the CFPB, to the extent practicable, meets all GSS requirements. CFPB staff are also developing formal policies and procedures to ensure that the CFPB meets all GSS requirements as adapted to meet our unique mission, including encouraging the open exchange of ideas, consideration of different or dissenting viewpoints, and protection of CFPB employees from efforts that may deter consideration of alternative scientific opinions.”
The CFPB advises that it has convened a cross-Bureau working group to develop the implementation plan and the Report, and that the working group will develop and enhance formal policies and procedures in consultation with management and leadership across the CFPB. The working group also will propose to the CFPB Director/Acting Director for approval policies that govern the production and use of scientific information. Overall, the report is at a high level, and details will presumably emerge as formal policies and procedures are developed.
The CFPB also advises that most CFPB research is generally descriptive, inferential, or both. According to the CFPB, (1) descriptive research generally aims to describe a population, product, or phenomenon of interest, often without a theoretical framework, and it provides as an example ascertaining what percentage of the population has experience using a financial product, and (2) inferential research generally applies theories and/or specific subject matter expertise to test specific hypotheses, and it provides as an example conducting hypothesis or model testing to determine whether two groups differ significantly on a key characteristic, or whether an intervention had a causal effect on an outcome of interest.
With regard to GSS, the CFPB explains that it refers to science conducted in a manner that abides by nine key tenets. The Report individually addresses each of the nine tenets, and notes that some of the standards described in the tenets cannot apply to both descriptive and inferential research. The CFPB advises that it expects staff to apply the tenet standards as appropriate to the type of scientific research being conducted.
The nine tenets are as follows:
- Reproducible: “To advance reproducible and replicable science, CFPB staff are developing policies and procedures to prioritize disciplined scientific methods and experimental designs, as appropriate.”
- The CFPB advises that it is developing policies to build upon existing practices to encourage the depositing of well-documented code into publicly accessible repositories, such as GitHub, and assessing whether more data can be made public and shared through the Public Data Inventory page of the CFPB’s website.
- Transparent: “The CFPB recognizes that transparency in scientific research entails the open, accessible, and comprehensive sharing of all components of the research process—experimental protocols, methodologies, data, analytical tools, and findings—to enable stringent scrutiny, validation, and reuse by the scientific community and the public.”
- The CFPB advises that it is developing policies and procedures to ensure that the CFPB’s scientific research adheres to this tenet while also recognizing that some research would not be made public as noted in the Executive Order.
- Communicative of Error and Uncertainty: “The CFPB is formalizing and enhancing policies and procedures to ensure that communication of scientific information adheres to established best practices for communicating error and uncertainty in research processes and results.”
- The CFPB advises that these best practices can include communicating statistical and quantitative uncertainty and variability by, for example, reporting confidence intervals and/or standard errors. The CFPB also states that “effective and comprehensive uncertainty quantification entails communicating both inferential uncertainty (for example, the degree of noise or variability around statistical estimates) and outcome variability (for example, the distribution of outcomes on the measure of interest across and within participant subgroups).”
- Collaborative and Interdisciplinary: “CFPB research generally reflects a wide range of stakeholder expertise, methodologies, professional backgrounds, and voices supported by several cross-Bureau working groups and the CFPB’s clearance process for external communications.”
- The CFPB advises that it includes people with different training and experience, which fosters interdisciplinary collaboration, and that it also collaborates with and obtains information from people and organizations outside the CFPB, including directly from consumers, other federal agencies, private sector firms, and non-profit organizations.
- Skeptical of its Findings and Assumptions: “The CFPB is developing policies and procedures to promote a culture of constructive skepticism in the scientific research process, building upon current best practices. Effective skepticism requires researchers to employ robust validation methods, including the methods discussed in earlier tenets.”
- The CFPB advises that it expects that policies and procedures will build upon the practice of having CFPB researchers present their early-stage work both internally and externally to diverse audiences to receive critical feedback, including at research conferences.
- Structured for Falsifiability of Hypotheses: “The CFPB is developing policies and procedures to prioritize falsifiable research, primarily, by encouraging researchers to specify their hypotheses in research proposals and published projects, as appropriate. These hypotheses must be testable with the data and methods proposed.”
- The CFPB advises that when it hosts future research conferences or research seminars, CFPB staff expect to recommend to organizers that they prioritize accepting papers that report open and transparent results (e.g., preregistered analyses; a full range of analyses including null or inconclusive results; heterogeneity and robustness analyses) and follow best practices for testing hypotheses.
- Subject to Unbiased Peer Review: “The CFPB does not participate in traditional peer-reviewed grant-making. However, aspects of standards from peer-reviewed grantmaking and publication processes can be incorporated at both the proposal and publication stages.”
- The CFPB advises that CFPB staff are assessing the current processes for the review of CFPB research, which can include review by subject matter experts, those in the management chain, and where appropriate and available, by external experts through approved channels and policies.
- Accepting of Negative Results as Positive Outcomes: “The CFPB recognizes the importance of negative or null results as contributions to scientific knowledge and is developing formal policies and procedures that will promote the submission and dissemination of these research results.”
- The CFPB advises that CFPB staff will formalize and enhance policies and procedures to ensure that research designs at the CFPB include consideration of how results can be interpreted if they produce a null or negative result. The CFPB also advises that it expects to adopt policies that will encourage staff to present negative or null research results during internal and external presentations of their early-stage work to diverse audiences to receive critical feedback.
- Without Conflicts of Interest: “To ensure that research is conducted without conflicts of interest, the CFPB will review its current policies and procedures to ensure that policies require that all researchers, reviewers, and agency officials involved in the funding or performance of federal research will disclose in a comprehensive and standardized manner all financial, personal, or institutional interests in research proposals, publications, peer and merit reviews, and data repositories.”
- The CFPB advises that applicable employees (1) who have not already been doing so will be required to file financial disclosure reports electronically with the CFPB Ethics Office as part of the CFPB’s financial disclosure program, and (2) will continue to comply with the CFPB Ethics Regulations requirement that they disclose and obtain written approval from their supervisor and concurrence from the CFPB Ethics Office prior to engaging in any outside employment or activities.
The Report does not expressly address a research issue of particular importance to the consumer financial services industry—CFPB cost/benefit analyses of proposed regulatory efforts. In general, the industry typically views such analyses as significantly underestimating the costs and related burdens of compliance with regulatory measures. Query whether the GSS efforts will lead to cost/benefit analyses that the industry views as being more realistic, which may help inform CFPB staff as to the relative merits of measures under consideration.
It also would have been interesting to learn of the impact of GSS efforts on data analysis in fair lending matters. However, as previously reported, President Trump issued an Executive Order in April 2025 that provides “[i]t is the policy of the United States to eliminate the use of disparate-impact liability in all contexts to the maximum degree possible to avoid violating the Constitution, Federal civil rights laws, and basic American ideals.” Thus, data analysis by the CFPB in the fair lender context will likely be limited, if used at all.
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