Airline Competition in Deregulated Markets: Theory, Firm Strategy, and Public Policy

Abstract

How airlines compete and the desirability of government intervention to control airline competition must be among the most studied of regulatory questions. Airlines were highly regulated by 1938 in response to political and economic forces that had produced regulation in many industries, including the skepticism about the efficacy of competitive markets that pervaded the Depression Era. The airline industry and its regulation almost immediately became the subject of substantial and continuing academic interest.