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Hubert Horan

Over his long career, Hubert Horan has worked on many of the most critical issues in the field of transportation economics, including the impact of regulation and mergers on industry efficiency, and the impacts of consolidation and other industry structural changes on consumer welfare. Mr. Horan graduated from Wesleyan University in 1976 with a B.A. degree and Honors in Economics. In 1980 he graduated from Yale University’s School of Management with an MPPM (MBA) degree. He is currently based in Phoenix, Arizona.
Antitrust and Competition

How Airline Alliances Convinced Regulators That Collusion Reduces Prices

The Department of Transportation granted antitrust immunity to Atlantic alliances that reduced competition on the basis of a single paper written by...
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Antitrust and Competition

How Alliances Carriers Established a Permanent Cartel

American carriers faced the post 9/11 demand shock, while the European intercontinental flag carriers were facing increased competition in the Middle East...
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Antitrust and Competition

The Airline Industry’s Post-2004 Consolidation Reversed 30 Years of Successful Pro-Consumer Policies

A small number of intercontinental carriers recaptured control of industry oversight in Washington and Brussels to convert the world’s most important markets...
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Uncategorized

Why Consolidation Undermined the Airline Industry’s Ability to Recover from the Coronavirus Crisis

A major factor contributing to the industry’s struggles during the current crisis was the loss of resiliency due to the consolidation...
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Academic Capture

Uber’s “Academic Research” Program: How to Use Famous Economists to Spread Corporate Narratives

Uber's employees co-authored academic papers with brand name scholars that were then used to back the company's PR and lobbying strategy. Published in respected...
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Antitrust and Competition

False Claims and Propaganda: Why Uber’s Narratives Are Wrong But Successful

Uber’s narratives reduce everything to emotive battles between good and evil. If Uber’s success is inevitable, and resistance is futile, no one needs to waste...
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Academic Capture

The Uber Bubble: Why Is a Company That Lost $20 Billion Claimed to Be Successful?

In the first of three interrelated articles, transportation consultant Hubert Horan discusses Uber's "uncompetitive economics." There is no real innovation in the company's business...
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Latest news

Income Inequality

Uninhibited Campaign Donations Risks Creating Oligarchy

Valentino Larcinese, Alberto Parmigiani
In new research, Valentino Larcinese and Alberto Parmigiani find that the 1986 Reagan tax cuts led to greater campaign spending from wealthy individuals, who benefited the most from this policy. The authors argue that a very permissive system of political finance, combined with the erosion of tax progressivity, created the conditions for the mutual reinforcement of economic and political disparities. The result was an inequality spiral hardly compatible with democratic ideals.
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ESG, Corporate Governance & Future of the Firm

Did the Meme Stock Revolution Actually Change Anything?

Dhruv Aggarwal, Albert H. Choi, Alex Lee
Many financial commentators thought that the surge of retail investors participating in the stock market, the most notable of whom boosted “meme stocks” like GameStop, would democratize corporate governance and improve prosocial firm behavior, including the promotion of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. In new research, Dhruv Aggarwal, Albert H. Choi, and Yoon-Ho Alex Lee find evidence that the exact opposite took place.
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Antitrust and Competition

The Kroger-Albertsons Merger Will Not Help Grocery Competition

Claire Kelloway
Kroger and Albertsons say they need to merge to compete with Walmart. Claire Kelloway argues that what they really want is Walmart’s monopsony power, and permitting mergers on these grounds will only harm suppliers, workers, and consumers.
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Research

Innovators Respond to Their Presidential Candidate Winning With More Innovation

Joseph Engelberg, Runjing Lu, William Mullins, Richard Townsend
Does an inventor’s political identity influence their productivity? In a new paper, Joseph Engelberg, Runjing Lu, William Mullins, and Richard Townsend examine the impacts of the 2008 and 2016 United States presidential elections on Democrat and Republican inventors, with a particular focus on the quantity and quality of patents after the country elects a new president.
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Antitrust and Competition

Letter to the Editor: Former FTC and DOJ Chief Economists Urge Separation of Economic and Legal Analysis in Merger Guidelines

Letter to the Editor
Seventeen former chief economists of the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division urge current Agency heads to separate the legal and economic analysis in the draft Merger Guidelines to strengthen the role of the latter in merger review.
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Antitrust and Competition

Why the Kroger-Albertsons Merger Is a Mess for Consumers

Christine P. Bartholomew
Grocers Kroger and Albertsons want to merge, which would make them the second biggest retail food chain and, according to them, enhance their ability to compete with Walmart and Costco and offer lower prices to consumers. Christine P. Bartholomew writes that the promises of more competition and lower prices for consumers are unlikely to manifest, and thus the Federal Trade Commission should block the deal.  
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Book Excerpts

After Neoliberalism

Martin Daunton
The following is an excerpt from Martin Daunton's new book, "The Economic Government of the World: 1933-2023," out November 14.
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ProMarket is dedicated to discussing how competition tends to be subverted by special interests. The posts represent the opinions of their writers, not necessarily those of the University of Chicago, the Booth School of Business, or its faculty. For more information, please visit ProMarket Policy.

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