I help clients answer hard questions about competition, regulation, and mobility — and translate the answers into decisions they can act on. Over six years in research and three in consulting, I've combined academic-grade empirical rigor with the practical judgment that policy and business work demand.
I work with two kinds of clients: organizations (firms, regulators, public institutions, and industry associations) that need economic analysis on a specific problem, and consultancies that bring me in as a specialist economist on competition and transport-sector engagements.
What I do
Competition & antitrust economics
Market and competition assessments, analysis of collusion and cartel behavior, and empirical evidence for regulatory or antitrust questions. My doctoral and published research focused on competition in oligopoly markets and academic publishing, using causal-inference and machine-learning techniques to draw defensible conclusions from data.
Mobility & transport economics
Through FORMOE and my advisory work, I analyze rail competition, public transport reform, automotive transformation, urban mobility, platform-based transport services, and the political economy of infrastructure and regulation — connecting economic analysis to live policy debates.
Policy evaluation & research-impact analysis
Evaluating programs and policies by their measurable results and the economic drivers behind them, including bibliometric and research-analytics work (my current focus at Elsevier's Science-Metrix brand).
How I work
Every engagement starts with the decision you're trying to make. I scope the question, bring the right empirical method to it - not the most complicated one(!) - and deliver findings as clear, decision-relevant conclusions, whether that's a memo, a briefing, an expert opinion, or a presentation to your stakeholders.
Let's discuss your question: Email wbschmal@gmail.com or connect on LinkedIn.