2008 CRMA News
16 October 2008
ARC grants awarded to Centre
Director and CRMA member
David Round in
conjunction with the University of Melbourne's Caron Beaton-Wells, Christine
Parker and Fiona Haines, have been approved for an ARC grant for their
project titled: A cancer on our economy? An empirical interdisciplinary
study of the criminalisation of serious cartel conduct in Australia.
They have been awarded $340,000 over three years. For a summary of the
project, click here.
Gigi Foster alongside of Queensland University of Technology's Benno Torgler
and Paul Frijtters have also been awarded an ARC grant for their project
titled: Should rational individuals be optimistic? Theory, survey
evidence, experimental evidence, and policy implications. They have
been awarded $221,000 over three years. For a summary of the project,
click here.
7 October 2008
Centre Director and Judge
meet to discuss new laws
On Friday October 3 David Round, who is a Member of the Australian
Competition Tribunal, together with Justice Alan Goldberg of the Federal
Court (and former President of the Tribunal), met in Melbourne for two hours
with the Principal Assistant Secretary for Commerce and Economic
Development, Hong Kong SAR, for discussions regarding the implementation of
a new competition regime in Hong Kong, and of the most appropriate
judicial/administrative procedures for enforcing and adjudicating the new
laws.
David Round attends
'Unleashing the Tiger' conference
David Round chaired a session at Melbourne University Law School’s
conference “Unleashing the Tiger”, held on Saturday October 4 in Melbourne,
which focussed on the introduction of modern antitrust laws in China.
Leading Chinese and Hong Kong academics, bureaucrats and lawyers attended,
as well as the new Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, prominent
Australian Federal Court judges, and many Australian lawyers, academics, and
State and Federal Treasury officials.
17 September 2008
Director returns from Europe
David Round, Director of the CRMA, has recently returned from a
four week trip to Norway, Sweden and Estonia. In Norway he gave papers, both
jointly written with Martin Shanahan, Deputy Director of the CRMA, at two
different conferences in Bergen. One was a study of Australia's first
antitrust case, the so-called Coal Vend case of 1908, and the other was a
scoping study for research on the history of cartels in Australia, to be
carried out in conjunction with several European researchers interested in
the history of cartels. In addition he met with numerous academics in these
countries who are involved in research into a variety of competition issues,
including retail petrol price cycles, and supermarket mergers. He also met
with directors and chief economists in each country's competition authority,
and gave seminars to staff on a variety of current Australian competition
issues.
1 September 2008
6th Annual UniSA Trade Practices Workshop
The early bird registrations for the 6th Annual UniSA Trade
Practices Workshop have now closed. Normal registrations close on
September 26th. For further information about the workshop and
registration booklet, click here.
13 August 2008
The Monetary and Financial Issues in Economic Integration in Asia workshop was held on Monday 4 August, 2008, at The Art Gallery of South Australia. The workshop was a joint event between the School of Economics at The University of Adelaide, the Centre for Regulation & Market Analysis at the University of South Australia, and the Heinz School of Public Policy & Management of Carnegie Mellon University at Adelaide.
The aim of the workshop was to examine current issues in the design and implementation of monetary and exchange rate policies for Asia. In particular, the workshop examined the regulatory and institutional characteristics of Asian financial markets, their interrelationships and how they influenced the effectiveness of policies in the region.
Presenters included:
Prema-Chandra Athukorala, Professor of Economics, Division of Economics & Australia South Asia Research Centre, Australian National University
Siwei Goo, Policy Advisor, Australian Chamber of Commerce & Industry
Victor Pontines, Lecturer , Heinz School of Public Policy & Management, Carnegie Mellon University at Adelaide
Ramkishen Rajan, Associate Professor, School of Public Policy, George Mason University USA
Tony Cavoli, Lecturer School of Commerce, The University of South Australia
Reza Siregar, School of Economics, The University of Adelaide
Darja Borsic, Faculty of Economics & Business, University of Maribor, Slovenia EU
Dr Muliadi Wijaya, Economics Department, Georgia State University, USA
July 21 2008
Director of CRMA and Judge both appointed to the Tribunal
David Round was re-appointed by the Governor-General on July 17 for a
third five-year term as a Member of the Australian Competition Tribunal. At
the same time, the Honourable Justice John Mansfield of the Federal Court of
Australia, and Chair of the Advisory Board of the Centre for Regulation and
Market Analysis, was appointed by the Governor-General as a Deputy President
of the Tribunal for a five year term.
July 16 2008
New Law School lecturer joins CRMA
Sulette Lombard moved to Australia from South Africa to join the
foundation staff of the Law School as a lecturer, in January 2008. She holds
a doctorate in law from the University of Pretoria, South Africa. She
previously held the position of senior lecturer at the University of
Pretoria, where she taught for 11 years, mainly in areas of Entrepreneurial
Law, Insolvency Law, Labour Law, Social Security Law, Commercial Law and
Business Law.
Her research interests are closely linked with the areas that she teaches
and encompass fields such as corporate governance; corporate social
responsibility; directors duties and director liability and corporate
insolvency. She published in leading refereed South African law journals, as
well as international journals and presented papers at South African, as
well as international conferences on related topics and co-authored a number
of text books and student text books in these areas.
July 14 2008
Law Professor gets book published
Professor Vicki Waye's book titled Trading in Legal Claims: Law,
Policy & Future Directions in Australia, UK & US has been published.
The book analyses law and policy issues regarding the creation of markets
for trading in legal claims as a means of improving access to justice. It
reviews the current positions in Australia, UK and US regarding claim
alienability and provides a comparative analysis of the divergent paths that
have developed in each, all of which portend towards claim commodification.
Regulatory options to ensure that claim holders in a legal claim market
would be protected from exploitation and that the market operates fairly and
efficiently are also examined. The book reviews costs and abuse of process
issues that could arise and conflicts of interest that may exist between
claimholders, lawyers and entrepreneurs. The author argues that legal claim
markets are justified on both policy and efficiency grounds as a means of
improving access to justice.
July 9 2008
PhD Candidates article published in Indian journal
An article co-authored by Manish Agarwal, PhD candidate at the CRMA,
and Professor Aditya Bhattacharjea has been published in the Economic &
Political Weekly (EPW), an Indian journal. The article analyses one
provision of the Indian Competition Act that covers the threshold limits of
mergers of global companies which would be covered by the Indian
legislation. This provision in the Act has not been received well in
business and legal circles. The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has
sought to allay these concerns by opting for a lenient approach to merger
regulation. The article critically analyses the path chosen by the CCI and
argues that the approach is flawed. For more, please refer the Commentary
section on EPW website (www.epw.org.in)
June 13 2008
CRMA Director Visits China
David Round has just returned from a three-week visit to China. He
was one of four international keynote speakers (the others were expatriate
Chinese professors from Hong Kong, England and the US) at the first academic
conference in China from May 23-26 on Chinas new Anti-monopoly Law, that
comes into operation in August 2008. The conference, organised by the School
of Economics at Shandong University, Jinan, and held at the lovely beach
resort of Weihai in Shandong province, was attended by economics, business
and law professors and deans from many of Chinas top universities. After
the conference he delivered a series of lectures to PhD and undergraduate
students at Shandong University, and had many individual conversations with
masters and PhD students about competition and antitrust issues, and their
thesis research. From Jinan he went to Beijing, where gave a lecture to
final year economics undergraduates at Renmin University, arguably one of
the top two or three economics departments in China. At Renmin he had
detailed talks with Professor Wu Hanhong, Director of the Research Centre of
Industrial Economy and Competition Policy (a research centre very similar to
the Centre for Regulation and Market Analysis), which will lead to joint
research programs and visits by academics between the two research centres.
June 11 2008
CRMA Working Papers Series Launched
The CRMA is pleased to announce the establishment of its working
paper series. The CRMA working paper series will present a forum for the
dissemination of papers covering topics in economics, law, finance, property
and associated disciplines consistent with research and interests currently
being investigated by the centre. In particular, we welcome submissions of a
high standard on topics that relate to markets, regulation and governance
and that have a strong regulatory orientation or contain strong policy
implications. If you would like to submit a working paper, please contact
John Wilson or
Tony Cavoli. For information
regarding the submission process, and instructions for authors, please click
here.
To visit the working papers website, please go to http://www.unisa.edu.au/crma/workingpapers.asp
May 15 2008
Talking Petrol Prices
What did
Professor David Round have to say about petrol prices?
Check it
out
May 14 2008
Sarre Comments
on Murder Case
Professor Rick Sarre discusses the ordered retrial
in the case of mental health chief's murder
Check it out
May 6 2008
See what Peter Rossini says about housing recovery losing momentum as prices fall Check it out