Severin Borenstein is Professor of the Graduate School in the Economic Analysis and Policy Group at the Haas School of Business and Faculty Director of the Energy Institute at Haas.  He is also Director emeritus of the University of California Energy Institute (1994-2014).  

He received his A.B. from U.C. Berkeley and Ph.D. in Economics from M.I.T.  His research focuses on business competition, strategy, and regulation.  He has published extensively on the airline industry, the oil and gasoline industries, and electricity markets.  His current research projects include the economics of renewable energy, economic policies for reducing greenhouse gases, alternative models of retail electricity pricing, and competitive dynamics in the airline industry. 

Borenstein is also a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, MA. He served on the Board of Governors of the California Power Exchange from 1997 to 2003. During 1999-2000, he was a member of the California Attorney General's Gasoline Price Task Force.

In 2010-11, Borenstein was a member of U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood's Future of Aviation Advisory Committee.  In 2012-13, he served on the Emissions Market Assessment Committee, which advised the California Air Resources Board on the operation of California’s Cap and Trade market for greenhouse gases.  In 2014, he was appointed to the California Energy Commission’s Petroleum Market Advisory Committee, which he chaired from 2015 until the Committee was dissolved in 2017.  From 2015-2020, he served on the Advisory Council of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. In 2019, he was appointed to the Governing Board of the California Independent System Operator.