Daniel Hanson, MSc

Mr. Hanson has testified and been retained as an expert on numerous high-profile cases. He has advised on cases that have gone to the UK Supreme Court (unauthorized overdraft charges on current accounts, one of the most high profile pieces of litigation involving the UK competition authorities ever); the UK Competition Appeals Tribunal (landmark truck cartel damages litigation involving the issues of pass-on and lost profits); the CMA (the appeal of the CAA’s price control review at Heathrow Airport); the UK High Court (judicial review of bus franchising in Manchester and access charging for the Heathrow Spur); international arbitration (dispute over a major toll road in Central Europe under UNCITRAL rules); public inquiry (charges for ferries to use a port); adjudications (sampling and extrapolation using the Amey principles); CMA market investigations (statutory audits, car prices, and mobile termination rates); and various price control reviews.

Mr. Hanson has advised on the appraisal of projects worth over $250 billion, including leading the economic advice to the UK Airports Commission and on numerous large and contentious road projects. He has advised governments in the Middle East on the economic impacts of policies, investments, and entire sectors. He has influenced international best practice on economic impact assessment and has served on numerous expert panels convened to address particularly contentious issues in the area.

He is the independent expert on cost inflation for High Speed 2 (Europe’s largest infrastructure project), advised Transport for London on its funding model post-COVID, and was one of the principal architects of the regulatory frameworks for High Speed 1 (aiding its sale for £600 million more than was expected) and the Elizabeth Line.

Mr. Hanson has authored numerous publications, including work on the income elasticity of demand and how it varies depending on economic context (cited 30+ times in the academic literature); the impact of house prices on economic productivity (hugely topical in London and in cities around the world); social and economic cost benefit analysis of making buildings infection resilient (for the UK’s Chief Scientific Adviser following COVID); the economic impact of dynamic clustering (and how this placemaking effect affects the cost benefit analysis of transport projects); how to reconcile the economic impact and cost benefit analysis of projects (hugely important in project appraisal); and the price elasticity of demand (critical to many different types of economic analysis).

Prior to joining NERA, Mr. Hanson worked for a large consulting firm and led its economics work in the transport and infrastructure sector in the UK. He was also a senior member of the management team of its economics practice. He is a former fellow of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), during which time he served as an international civil servant at the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), a multilateral institution based in Barbados.