Howard P. Marvel is Professor Emeritus of Economics at The Ohio State University, which he joined in 1973. He was previously Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics and Professor of Law in the Michael E. Moritz College of Law.  In addition to his position at Ohio State, he has held appointments at Oxford University, Oxford, England; Stanford University; and Osaka University, Osaka, Japan. 

At Ohio State, among his other responsibilities, he has taught undergraduate and doctoral level courses in Industrial Organization, which is the field of economics concerned with how business firms are organized, how they relate to one another, and how their organization matters for market performance. He has devoted a significant portion of his professional career to the study and teaching of Industrial Organization, and to its application through antitrust and regulation law and policy. He has written extensively regarding relationships between suppliers and their dealers and distributors, focusing particularly on supplier/dealer contractual relationships, often known as vertical restraints. He has also taught courses in Law & Economics and Government & Business (Regulation) both to undergraduates and to law students. He has lectured on topics related to vertical restraints to the American Bar Association, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice, the National Association of Attorneys General the Conference Board, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Japan’s Ministries of International Trade and Industry (MITI) and Post and Telecommunications, and the U.S. Small Business Administration, as well as at colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad, and at conferences and meetings sponsored by legal and business organizations. 

He has acted as a consultant on vertical restraints, particularly antitrust and other competition matters for the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Small Business Administration, and for other institutes, entities and private firms.  He has testified as an expert in antitrust litigation and other business disputes involving vertical restraints and other distribution issues.  His work on vertical restraints has been cited widely by courts and antitrust authorities, most notably including both the majority opinion and the dissent in the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in the in the Leegin case {Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS, Inc., 127 S. Ct. 2705 (2007)).