Alfred E. Kahn
Alfred E. Kahn | |
---|---|
Born | Paterson, New Jersey, U.S. | October 17, 1917
Died | December 27, 2010 Ithaca, New York, U.S. | (aged 93)
Education | New York University (BA) Yale University (PhD) |
Academic career | |
Institution | Cornell University |
Alfred Edward Kahn (October 17, 1917 – December 27, 2010) was an American economist and political advisor who specialized in
He was the
Biography
Kahn was born in
Before World War II, he also worked for policy research organizations and government agencies in Washington, including the Brookings Institution and the antitrust division of the U.S. Justice Department.[4] After serving in the United States Army, he became Chairman of the Department of Economics at Ripon College.
He moved to
While serving under Carter, Kahn became known for his blunt and sometimes politically damaging comments. Convinced that certain administration policies would lead to a
He served on many private boards on commissions addressing regulated and deregulating industries such as electricity, telecommunications, and transportation. He also received numerous awards for his work in economics, regulation, and deregulation. A seminar room in the Lincoln Hall Music Library of Cornell University is named in his honor. He also maintained a long relationship with NERA Economic Consulting (formerly National Economic Research Associates). In 1982, he was elected to the Common Cause National Governing Board.
In addition to his professorship at Cornell, Kahn sang baritone in university productions of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas from 1964 until retiring from the stage in 2000; he did a particularly fine turn as the Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe in the early 1970s. He was badly injured in a 2003 car crash, and endowed the New York hospital that saved him with funds to set up a camera traffic-surveillance system so that emergency-room doctors could view the accidents that injured their patients.
Kahn remained completely convinced that deregulating the airlines was a success. When a friend complained that increased numbers of passengers on flights resulted in him sitting next to "a filthy hippie" on a plane, he replied, "Since I haven't heard from the hippie, I can assume the distaste wasn't reciprocated." In 2008, the nonagenarian Kahn gave a speech to the Global Airport International Summit in Boston where he said, "The industry in the last 30 years gave the public something it had not received before: high quality, space, and low cost. It catered to a variety of demands and abilities today so that we had an enormous spread of fares. It offered the people upgrades such as business class and frequent flyer miles." Admitting that he was no expert on airplanes or the fine details of the industry, Kahn once said "I can't tell one plane from the other. To me, they're all just marginal costs with wings."
Kahn was the father-in-law of Daniel Mark Fogel, president of the University of Vermont.[7]
Professor Kahn died of cancer in Ithaca, New York at the age of 93, on December 27, 2010.[8]
Work in deregulation
Kahn's strong advocacy of deregulation stemmed largely from his understanding as an economist of marginal-cost theory. In his time at the New York Public Service Commission he was instrumental in using marginal costs to help price electricity and telecommunications services; this was novel at the time but is routinely performed today.[citation needed]
While serving as Chairman of the
He consistently argued that, where feasible, complete deregulation is preferable to partial deregulation. "The verdict of the great majority of economists would, I believe, be that deregulation has been a success — bearing in mind, as always, the central argument … that society's choices are always between or among imperfect systems, but that, wherever it seems likely to be effective, even very imperfect competition is preferable to regulation …. Recent experience clearly suggests, instead, that the mixed system may be the worst of both possible worlds."[10]
In an interview with USA Today,[11] he said he wished he could have deregulated the telecommunications industry.
He served as an expert witness in many regulatory matters, particularly in issues regarding flat rate pricing for telecommunications, marginal costing in both telecommunications and electricity, and net neutrality. After his death, The Economist wrote:
- And though, being an economist, he could not help muttering about the imperfection of societies and systems and the absurdity of predictions — and though, being an inveterate puncturer of himself, he would demand a paternity test if anyone called him the father of the deregulated world — his adventures with airlines led on to the freeing of the trucking, telecoms and power industries, and heralded the Thatcherite and Reaganite revolutions.[12]
Published works
Kahn was the author of numerous books, including The Economics of Regulation: Principles and Institutions, Lessons from Deregulation: Telecommunications and Airlines After the Crunch, Whom the Gods Would Destroy, or How Not to Deregulate,
Besides his love for numbers, Kahn also loved words, and "hated to see them misused." Even after his death, he was acknowledged as "a champion of plain English...an economist who could do without 'herein' and 'therein'."[14]
Awards
References
- ^ "Economist Alfred Kahn, 'father of airline deregulation' and former presidential adviser, dies at 93".
- ^ Russell, George (September 29, 1986). "Flying Amid the Merger Clouds". Time. Archived from the original on November 6, 2012. Retrieved January 12, 2008.
- ISBN 0-674-71607-8.
- ^ "Alfred Kahn, Father of 1970s Airline Deregulation, Dies at 93". Bloomberg.com. December 28, 2010. Retrieved December 28, 2010.
- ^ "'Inflation Czar' will take apart his title" (PDF). Cornell Chronicle. Cornell University. July 14, 1983. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 1, 2011. Retrieved March 25, 2008.
- ^ Hershy Jr., Robert D. (December 28, 2010). "Alfred E. Kahn Dies at 93; Prime Mover of Airline Deregulation". New York Times.
- Burlington Free Press. Archived from the originalon August 31, 2013. Retrieved May 25, 2011.
- ^ "Architect of airline deregulation dies in NY at 93 - BusinessWeek". Archived from the original on January 1, 2011.
- ^ a b Thierer, Adam (December 21, 2010) Who'll Really Benefit from Net Neutrality Regulation?, CBS News
- The MIT Press. Archived from the originalon June 29, 2011. Retrieved November 30, 2010.
- ^ Reed, Dan (July 23, 2007). "Wrath of Kahn kept airfares low". USA Today. Retrieved August 7, 2007.
- ^ "Obituary: Alfred Kahn". The Economist. January 22, 2010. Archived from the original on January 27, 2011. Retrieved January 27, 2011.
- ISBN 978-0-8447-7156-4.
- ^ Frank, Robert H. (January 9, 2011). "A Champion of Plain English". The New York Times. Retrieved July 15, 2013.