Robert Michaels

Michaels received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles. His research centers on energy markets and public policies toward them. It has provided many case studies used in his classes, which include managerial economics (for MBA students and undergraduates) and industrial organization analysis. Some of these cases also appear in his textbook, Transactions and Strategies: Economics for Management, published by Cengage Learning.

Michaels’ past positions have included staff economist at the Institute for Defense Analyse,s and researcher for consulting firms. I is a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, senior advisor to the Institute for Energy Research, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, and a policy advisor at The Heartland Institute.

His research on electricity and natural gas markets has appeared in peer reviewed journals, law reviews, and industry publications. He also writes “Power Moves,” a biweekly column on developments in high voltage power and its transmission, for Energy Metro Desk, probably the nation’s leading magazine for energy risk managers. Until recently he was co-editor of the peer-reviewed journal Contemporary Economic Policy for the Western Economic Association. He frequently presents his research before both academic and industry audiences.

Michaels has also worked as an expert for state regulatory agencies (including the California Public Utilities Commission and Illinois Commerce Commission), electric utilities, independent power producers and marketers, consumers and producers of natural gas, and public interest and environmental organizations. His work has extended beyond the U.S. to New Zealand and Japan. Michaels has submitted invited expert testimony and reports to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and on four occasions to committees of the U.S. House of Representatives.

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