Industrial organisation, regulation, energy, transport and environmental economics

Industrial organisation and regulation
Research in industrial organisation and regulation is focused on the behaviour of firms in markets, and on government intervention in those markets through competition policy and activist regulatory oversight.

Energy and environmental economics
Research in energy and environmental economics is centred on the application of economics and econometric methods to contemporary energy, resource, transport and environmental problems.

Examples of research capabilities in this area are:

• Competition policy: for example, cartel prosecution, monopolisation strategies, merger analysis, cartel formation and operation in the presence of an antitrust authority, analysis of cartel leniency programmes under multi-market collusion, and airline pricing and its implications for competition policy.
• Economics of research and development: optimal and efficient research and development portfolios, intellectual property regimes and R&D incentives, R&D portfolio choices with complementary technologies, optimal contract design, entry deterrence and communication.
• Economics of network industries: for example, regulation and competition policy in liberalised postal markets, the regulation and design of electricity markets, and government procurement of peak generating capacity in the electricity market.
• The relationship between urban form and transport: transport demand and infrastructure.
• The design of rights-based systems of governance: for example, in fisheries and water resources and, more recently, relating to climate change.
• Spatial econometrics: modelling of risk, environmental attributes, and firm-location decisions.
• Public finance issues in natural resource extraction: the optimal design of resource extraction contracts under informational asymmetries between the resource owner and the extractive firms.

For further information on our capabilities in electricity, transport and climate change, visit our Energy Centre website.

• Associate Professor Reiko Aoki
• Dr Zhijun Chen
• Professor Tim Hazledine
• Professor John Panzar
• Dr Stephen Poletti

Contact details
For more information, contact the following:

• Dr Zhijun Chen
  Email: z.chen@auckland.ac.nz
• Professor Tim Hazledine
  Email: t.hazledine@auckland.ac.nz

• Professor Bryce Hool
• Dr Rob Kirkpatrick
• Professor John Panzar
• Dr Stephen Poletti
• Dr Erwann Sbai
• Professor Basil Sharp

Contact details
For more information, contact the following:

• Dr Stephen Poletti
  Email: s.poletti@auckland.ac.nz
• Professor Basil Sharp
  Email: b.sharp@auckland.ac.nz