The past thirty years have witnessed a transformation of government economic intervention in broad segments of industry throughout the world. Many industries historically subject to economic price and entry controls have been largely deregulated, including natural gas, trucking, airlines, and commercial banking. However, recent concerns about market power in restructured electricity markets, airline industry instability amid chronic financial stress, and the challenges created by the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which allowed commercial banks to participate in investment banking, have led to calls for renewed market intervention. Economic Regulation and Its Reform collects research by a group of distinguished scholars who explore these and other issues surrounding government economic intervention. Determining the consequences of such intervention requires a careful assessment of the costs and benefits of imperfect regulation. Moreover, government interventions may take a variety of forms, from relatively nonintrusive performance-based regulations to more aggressive antitrust and competition policies and barriers to entry. This volume introduces the key issues surrounding economic regulation, provides an assessment of the economic effects of regulatory reforms over the past three decades, and examines how these insights bear on some of today’s most significant concerns in regulatory policy.
In 1938 the U.S. Government took under its wing an infant airline industry. Government agencies assumed responsibility not only for airline safety but for setting fares and determining how individual markets would be served. Forty years later, the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 set in motion the economic deregulation of the industry and opened it to market competition. This study by Steven Morrison and Clifford Winston analyzes the effects of deregulation on both travelers and the airline industry. The authors find that lower fares and better service have netted travelers some $6 billion in annual benefits, while airline earnings have increased by $2.5 billion a year. Morrison and Winston expect still greater benefits once the industry has had time to adjust its capital structure to the unregulated marketplace, and they recommend specific public polices to ensure healthy competition.
The break-up of BAA and the blocked takeover of Bratislava airport by the competing Vienna airport have brought the issue of airport competition to the top of the agenda for air transport policy in Europe. Airport Competition reviews the current state of the debate and asks whether airport competition is strong enough to effectively limit market power. It provides evidence on how travellers chose an airport, thereby altering its competitive position, and on how airports compete in different regions and markets. The book also discusses the main policy implications of mergers and subsidies.
Transportation Policy and Economic Regulation: Essays in Honor of Theodore Keeler addresses a number of today's important transportation policy issues, exploring a variety of transportation modes, and examining the policy implications of a number of alternatives. Theodore Keeler had a distinguished career in transportation economics, helping to shape regulatory policies concerning the transportation industries and assessing the appropriateness of various policies. A distinguishing feature of his work is that it always had policy implications. As a tribute to Theodore Keeler, this book examines transportation policy issues across a variety of transportation industries, including aviation, railroads, highways, motor carrier transport, automobiles, urban transit, and ocean shipping. The book evaluates the economic impact and effectiveness of various policies, employing empirical analyses and new estimation techniques, such as Bayesian analysis. The book is designed for transportation professionals and researchers, as well as transportation economics students, providing an in-depth analysis of some of today's important transportation policy issues. Policy changes established in the last 35-40 years have introduced profound changes in the business environment of the transportation industry. Past policy changes promoted the free market's role in setting prices and determining service availability. While 21st century policy has focused on a variety of other issues, such as safety, road and air congestion, productivity growth, labor relations and exhaust emission, many still promote the role of competition. In addition to examining various transportation policy issues in the U.S., the book explores some approaches to dealing with transportation issues in different parts of the world. Contemporary transportation policy debates have broadened from their initial focus of primarily examining the merits of reforming economic regulations at national levels, to now examining a variety of issues such as alternative methods of social regulation (such as safety regulation and emission controls), new approaches to changing economic regulations, the potential for reforming international regulations, and the appropriate role for government in transportation. - Examines transportation policy developments across a variety of modes, including some international analysis - Shows how new policy changes, such as changes in regulation, affect overall transportation system performance - Features chapters that use innovative methodologies, such as Bayesian techniques, qualitative analysis, and an attribute-incorporated Malmquist productivity index - Examines the ways that policy impacts depend on a variety of factors, and shows how economic tools can be used to gain greater insights into the likely impacts of policy and the desirability of various policies - Analyzes transport prices, quality of service, safety, the use of information technology and operating issues, highlighting how transportation enhances quality of life
This groundbreaking book offers a critical and wide-ranging assessment of the global air transport liberalization process over the past 40 years. This compilation of world experts on air transport economics, policy, and regulation is timely and significant, considering that air transport is currently facing a series of new challenges due to technological changes, the emergence of new markets, and increased security concerns.
The aviation sector consists of various actors such as airlines, ground handling companies, and others all with conflicting priorities. In order to understand how these actors position themselves in an increasingly competitive market, The Air Transportation Industry: Economic Conflict and Competition analyzes all the market segments in detail, examining such issues as which industrial economic structure drives decisions, the main economic problems, the consequences for negotiations between different actors, impacts on the global aviation market, and much more. This book covers the entire aviation sector including strategies, regulation, resilience, privatization, airport slot management, and more. It examines how economic and strategic struggles underlie the current market structure, both for aviation as a whole and for the constituent actors as carriers, authorities, and handlers. It examines the ways market and nonmarket approaches impact the competitiveness of the air transport industry, offering a complete mapping of the economic actions between actors of the air transport industry. This volume will help readers gain insight into the possible strategic choices and the mutual competitive strength within the future aviation market. - Contains contributions from well-known aviation scholars - Includes numerous cases studies throughout that explore a wide range of topics - Focuses on applied knowledge, with clearly structured chapters examining topics from a global perspective - Addresses the ongoing consequences of COVID-19 on the air transportation industry, examining potential strategic responses in the event of subsequent pandemics
Monograph on transport policy in the USA in respect of air transport and the regulation of commercial passenger airlines - presents an economic model of airline competition, and covers the impact of regulation on price structures, costs and efficiency, etc. References and statistical tables.
