ABSTRACT
Studies by academic economists were a significant force in the movement towards deregulation of the domestic airline industry in the early 1970s (Levine, 1965; Jordan, 1970; Keeler, 1972; Douglas and Miller, 1974). During the critical 1977–78 period in which deregulation was imposed first de facto by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) and then de jure by Congress, the chairman and vice-chairman of the CAB were economists. For the 14 years since deregulation, economists have continued intensive study of the industry, in part because of the unusual availability of reliable firm- and transaction-level data and in part because of the rare opportunity to observe an industry as it evolves from strict economic regulation to fairly unimpeded competition and strategic behavior.
