Lessons from Deregulation: Telecommunications and Airlines after the Crunch

Over the last several years, the value of stocks in both the airline and the telecommunications industries have dropped catastrophically. Since these industries were among the most important—and most visible—to have been unleashed from regulation in recent decades (albeit in widely differing degree), their difficulties have raised the question of whether their deregulation should be reconsidered or even reversed.

Alfred E. Kahn, one of the foremost authorities on deregulation, argues in…