UIowa expert believes ban on airline stock buybacks should be allowed to expire September 30.

Petra Sinagl, assistant professor of finance at the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business, is an expert on airline stock buybacks. She believes the stock buyback ban, which has been in place since 2020 as part of the federal CARES Act, should be allowed to end on its September 30 expiration date. While some are calling for the ban to be extended, she says stock buybacks are not an enemy and that given the volatility of the industry, buybacks are the easiest way for airlines to reward shareholders.  She argues airlines don’t use buybacks nearly as often as do firms in other industries, and that a policy focused on improving competition in the industry and new investment opportunities would be more useful in generating airline reinvestment than extending the stock buyback ban.

She elaborates more in a white paper published by the Center for Economic and Policy Research at https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/expiration-ban-stock-repurchases.