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2005 Media Releases

Research focus on competition and collusion in business

What are the business implications of the recently privatised Telstra? How do you design competition policy for telecommunications, the internet – and for energy sectors such as electricity and gas? And as concern over ever-escalating petrol prices demonstrates, what are the best methods for assessing industry competition in the 21st century?

These are just some of the themes on the table as world-ranking academics and experts in Australian competition policy gather this week at Melbourne’s La Trobe University for the Industry Economics Conference on Thursday 29, and Friday 30, September 2005.

Conference organiser, Dr David Prentice, from the La Trobe University School of Business, says a highlight for anyone interested in economic policy is a special panel session dealing with economic issues flowing from the privatisation of Telstra.

Two other panel sessions deal with ‘Empirical merger analysis by competition authorities’ and ‘Evaluating the outcomes of creating markets in water, electricity and telecommunications’. Speakers are from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), CRA International (formerly NECG), Commonwealth Bank and New Zealand’s Commerce Commission.

Four international keynote speakers at the conference are:

Professor John Sutton from the London School of Economics, one of the leading researchers in theoretical and empirical industrial organisation over the last twenty years;

Professor Patrick Rey, University of Toulouse I, who has specialised in competition policy in network industries, including telecommunications and the Internet;

Professor Michael Waterson, University of Warwick, whose most recent research has been on strategic location decisions for fast food retailing and supply competition in electricity and gas in the UK; and

Dr Serge Moresi, Director of Competition Modelling at CRA International, who has extensively analysed vertically related industries, including constructing simulation models of mergers.

About 30 papers are being presented, with speakers from the public and private sectors and universities.

The conference is sponsored by La Trobe University, ACCC, CRA International, the Productivity Commission and the University of Melbourne. It will be opened by the Vice-Chancellor of La Trobe University, Professor Michael Osborne.

Monday, 26 SeptemberResearch focus on competition and collusion in business

For further information:

Details about these and other aspects of the conference are available on the website: www.latrobe.edu.au/iec2005 or from Dr David Prentice, tel: 61 3 9479 1482 or email: iec2005@latrobe.edu.au.