Department of Justice to Host Antitrust Workshop on Airline Competition

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

According to a press release, "The Department of Justice's Antitrust Division today announced it will host a one-day workshop on recent academic research into developments in airline antitrust and competition to mark the 30-year anniversary of airline deregulation in the United States."  On this topic, Darren Bush (one of our two new contributing editors) hosted a wonderful symposium at the University of Houston on the same topic earlier this year.  The conference will take place on October 23.

The current schedule is as follows:

9:00am–10:00am		Keynote Lecture         Speaker: Severin Borenstein, E.T. Grether Professor of Business Administration and Public Policy, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley; Director of the University of California Energy Institute; and Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)         Paper: "How Airline Markets Work...Or Do They? Regulatory Reform in the Airline Industry" by Severin Borenstein and Nancy Rose (Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Research Associate, NBER)
10:15am–12:00pm		Session 1: Airline Competition, Financial Volatility and Recent Trends         Presenter: Panle Jia, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Faculty Research Fellow, NBER         Paper: "Tracing the Woes: An Empirical Analysis of the Airline Industry" by Steven Berry (James Burrows Moffatt Professor of Economics, Yale University, and Research Associate, NBER) and Panle Jia Presenter: Federico Ciliberto, Assistant Professor, Department of     Economics, University of Virginia                      Paper: "Bankruptcy and Product-Market Competition: Evidence from the     Airline Industry" by Federico Ciliberto and Carola Schenone (Assistant     Professor, Finance Area, McIntire School of Commerce, University of     Virginia)         Presenter: Rene Kamita, Economist, Economic Analysis Group, Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice               Paper: "Analyzing the Impact of Antitrust Immunity: Price Effects Following the Aloha-Hawaiian Antitrust Immunity Agreement" by Rene Kamita
1:15pm–2:30pm		Session 2: Airline Competition, Airport Delays and Congestion              Presenter: Cliff Winston, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies, Brookings Institution               Paper: "Airline Delays: Can Airport Privatization Help?" by Cliff Winston and Steven Morrison (Professor, Department of Economics, Northeastern University)        Presenter: Jan Brueckner, Professor, Department of Economics, University     of California, Irvine                          Paper: "Price vs. Quantity-Based Approaches to Airport Congestion     Management" by Jan Brueckner
2:45pm–4:00pm		Session 3: Airline Competition, Entry and Potential Competition              Presenter: Abe Dunn, Economist, Economic Analysis Group, Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice               Paper: "Do Low Quality Products Affect High Quality Entry? Multiproduct Firms and Nonstop Entry in Airline Markets" by Abe Dunn Presenter: John Kwoka, Neal F. Finnegan Distinguished Professor of     Economics, Northeastern University             Paper: "Eliminating a Competitive Constraint: The Price Effect of Merging     with a Potential Entrant in Airlines" by John Kwoka and Evgenia     Shumilkina (PhD student and lecturer, Department of Economics,     Northeastern University)