Jimmy Carter,Alfred Kahn, and Airline Deregulation: Anatomy of a Policy Success

摘要

Although the presidency of Jimmy Carter (1977-81) is widely regarded as a failure, the deregulation movement that was largely initiated during his term in office was and remains a very successful policy. This essay focuses on airline deregulation in particular. There are several reasons for this emphasis. First, airlines were the first of the transportation industries to experience deregulation. Second, airline deregulation and transportation deregulation in general produced unambiguous benefits. In contrast, the benefits of financial deregulation initiated in the same period are much cloudier. Finally, the measures adopted were largely those proposed by the community of economists who had studied the performance of the airline industry. Indeed, the leader of the Civil Aeronautics Board in the initial stages of deregulation was Alfred Kahn, an economist who had quite literally written the book on regulation.