Regulation and competition conference (25 - 26 July 2002)

Location

Manly Pacific Parkroyal, Sydney

Conference details

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is hosting a conference on key
regulatory issues of national significance, focussing on "Regulating for Efficiency and Competition".
The conference will feature international and local speakers representing industry, consumers, academia,
consulting firms and government.

International speakers will include:

• Professor Sanford Berg, Director, Public Utility Research Centre, University of Florida
• Professor Frank Wolak, Economics, Stanford University
• Dr William Tye, Consultant, The Brattle Group, Boston
• Dr Jonathan Levy, Deputy Chief Economist, The Federal Communications Commission (FCC),
  Washington DC
• Mr Bob Cotterill, Civil Aviation Authority, United Kingdom.

The Conference will present the views of a range of experts in regulatory design and evaluation, and
consider trends in regulatory practice in Australia, the United States, Europe and elsewhere.
Topics to be discussed include:

• the "paradox" of the coexistence of competition and regulation in natural monopoly industries
• regulatory approaches to dealing with monopoly power at the access and retail levels, competitive
  neutrality and price squeezes
• exploring better approaches to regulatory institutions
• the extent and sharing of productivity gains from microeconomic reform
• key issues in competition and regulation in electricity, gas, telecommunications and airports will be
  debated in industry-specific sessions.