Professor Lyon's primary research interest is the interplay between corporate strategy and public policy, which he has pursued in a number of application areas, including corporate environmentalism, electric utility investment practices, natural gas contracting, innovation in the health care sector, and the introduction of competition in regulated industries.  His book Corporate Environmentalism and Public Policy was published by Cambridge University Press in November 2004.  Professor Lyon's teaching experience includes managerial economics, business and government, game theory, business strategy, and the management of innovation.

He has been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago and at the University of Bonn, and a Fulbright Scholar at the Scuola Sant'Anna in Pisa, Italy.  He spent the academic year 2002/2003 as a Gilbert White Fellow at Resources for the Future in Washington, D.C., and 2003/2004 as a visiting economist in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.  Professor Lyon serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Regulatory Economics, and his research has been published in such journals as the RAND Journal of Economics, the Journal of Law and Economics, the Journal of Public Economics, the Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, and the Journal of Law, Economics and Organizations.

Research Fields: Corporate Environmental Strategy, Industrial Organization, Regulation, Contracts.

Select a category below or scroll down to view list:

Published Papers

Allen Blackman, Thomas P. Lyon and Nicholas Sisto (2006) "Voluntary Environmental Agreements when Regulatory Capacity is Weak". Comparative Economics Studies, 48 682-702.

Thomas P. Lyon (2006) "Does Dual Sourcing Lower Procurement Costs?" The Journal of Industrial Economics, LIV(2): 223-252.

Thomas P. Lyon and John W. Mayo (2005) "Regulatory Opportunism and Investment Behavior: Evidence from the U.S. Electric Utility Industry."  RAND Journal of Economics,36 (3): 628-644.

Neslihan Aydogan and Thomas P. Lyon (2004) "Spatial Proximity and Complementarities in the Trading of Tacit Knowledge."  International Journal of Industrial Organization, November 2004, 22: 1115-1135.

Thomas P. Lyon and John W. Maxwell (2004) "Astroturf: Interest Group Lobbying and Corporate Strategy."  Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 13(4): 561-598.

Thomas P. Lyon and Eric Rasmusen (2004) "Buyer-Option Contracts Restored: Renegotiation, Inefficient Threats, and the Hold-Up Problem."  The Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, 20(1): 148-169.

Thomas P. Lyon and John W. Maxwell (2003) "Self-regulation, taxation and public voluntary environmental agreements."  Journal of Public Economics, 87: 1453-1486.

Thomas P. Lyon and Haizhou Huang (2002) "Legal Remedies for Breach of the Regulatory 'Contract'."  Journal of Regulatory Economics, 22(2): 107-132.

John W. Maxwell, Thomas P. Lyon and Steven C. Hackett (2000) "Self-Regulation and Social Welfare: The Political Economy of Corporate Environmentalism."  Journal of Law & Economics, 43(2): 583-618.

Stefan Lutz, Thomas P. Lyon, and John W. Maxwell (2000) "Quality Leadership when Regulatory Standards are Forthcoming."  The Journal of Industrial Economics, Vol. XLVIII, No. 3, 331-348.

Thomas P. Lyon (1999) "Quality Competition, Insurance, and Consumer Choice in Health Care Markets."  Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 8(4): 545-580.

Thomas P. Lyon (1996) "A Model of Sliding-Scale Regulation."  Journal of Regulatory Economics, 9:227-247.

Thomas P. Lyon (1996) "Evaluating the Performance of Non-Bayesian Regulatory Mechanisms."  Journal of Regulatory Economics, 9:41-60.

Keith J. Crocker and Thomas P. Lyon (1994) "What Do 'Facilitating Practices' Facilitate? An Empirical Investigation of Most-Favored-Nation Clauses in Natural Gas Contracts."  Journal of Law and Economics, 37(2): 297-322.

Thomas P. Lyon and Steven C. Hackett (1993) "Bottlenecks and Governance Structures: Open Access and Long-Term Contracting in Natural Gas."  Journal of Law, Economics, & Organizations, 9(2): 380-398.

Thomas P. Lyon (1992) "Regulation with '20-20 Hindsight': Least-Cost Rules and Variable Costs."  The Journal of Industrial Economics, 40(3): 277-289.

Thomas P. Lyon (1991) "Regulation with '20-20 Hindsight: Heads I win, Tails you Lose?"  The RAND Journal of Economics, 22(4): 581-595.

Forthcoming Papers                                                                                 back to top

Book Chapters                                                                        back to top

Thomas P. Lyon and John W. Maxwell (2003) "Mandatory and Voluntary Approaches to Mitigating Climate Change."  In Andrea Baranzini and Phillippe Thalmann (eds.), Voluntary Agreements in Climate Policies, Edward Elgar Press.

Thomas P. Lyon and John W. Maxwell (2002) "Voluntary Approaches to Environmental Regulation: A Survey."  In Maurizio Franzini and Antonio Nicita (eds.), Economic Institutions and Environmental Policy: Post Present and Future, Aldershot, Hampshire, UK: Ashgate Publishing Ltd.

Thomas P. Lyon (2000) "Preventing Exclusion at the Bottleneck: Structural and Behavioral Approaches."  In Michael A. Crew (ed), Expanding Competition in Regulated Industries, Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Working Papers                                                                     back to top  

Thomas P. Lyon and John W. Maxwell, "Greenwash: Corporate Environmental Disclosure Under Threat of Audit," Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan.

Thomas P. Lyon and Eun-Hee Kim, "Greenhouse Gas Reductions or Greenwash?: The DOE's 1605b Program," Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan.

Thomas P. Lyon and John W. Maxwell, "Preempting Uncertain Regulatory Threats," Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan.

Thomas P. Lyon and Jing Li, "Regulatory Uncertainty and Regulatory Scope," Kelly School of Business, Indiana University.

Thomas P. Lyon, "Environmental Governance: an Economic Perspective," Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan.