School of Commerce
Centre for Regulation and Market Analysis
Centre for Regulation and Market Analysis
27 October 2011
Researcher of the Month
Congratulations to the Division of Business Research Office
'Researcher of the Month' Dr Ping Xiong! Ping is a lecturer at the School of
Law, member of CRMA and is an Early Career Researcher at UniSA. Ping's
research interest is in the field of international economic law with a focus
on intellectual property policy in international trade, and its implications
for free trade agreements and for international human rights protection. She
is currently involved with the CAB and CRMA working on a research project
making a comparative study of the trade secret laws of Australia and China.
This research was inspired by the now well-known Chinese case against a
former Rio Tinto staff member Stern Hu on a charge of 'theft of commercial
secrets'. The research is intended to compare the Chinese law and Australia
law on trade secrets protection in order to clarify the legal concepts in
both jurisdictions. The research will also offer some discussion of the
Chinese business and legal culture in the trade secrets protection area.
Congratulations Ping!
24 October 2011
PhD Completion
Congratulations to Bernhard Lobmayr! Bernhard has now completed all
the requirements for his PhD. His thesis is entitled: Innovation and
Regulation in High-Risk Medical Device Markets, and was supervised by
Professor David Round and Professor Martin Shanahan. He is now practising
what he researched on, by working for the listed Adelaide medical device
company Ellex, a global leader in vision-care technology.
18 October 2011
CRMA Digest #6
This week our latest CRMA digest (#6) was published. It contains news
on the Centre's latest activities and publications.
Click here for a
link to all our digests, including our most recent version.
17 October 2011
9th Annual UniSA Competition and Consumer
Workshop
The 9th Annual UniSA Competition and Consumer Workshop was held on 14-15
October at the Adelaide Convention Centre, with a wonderful dinner at the
Adelaide Oval on the Friday night. The event, venue, food and wine
(generously donated by the McWilliams Wine Group) were all a great success!
The program for the Workshop included an impressive mix of international
speakers and commentators including Dr Lilla Csorgo, Chief Economist at the
New Zealand Commerce Commission, Professor Richard Gilbert from the
University of Berkeley, California, Simon Bishop, principal of RBB Economics
in London and Brussels, and Merren McArthur, Group Executive from Virgin
Australia. The after dinner speaker was the Honourable Ray Finkelstein QC,
formerly Judge of the Federal Court of Australia and President of the
Australian Competition Tribunal. The Workshop attracted 60 delegates this
year, including a number from New Zealand, England, and several judges from
Australia and NZ. We look forward to planning and hosting our 10th Workshop
next year.
6 October 2011
CRMA Journal
The CRMA is pleased to announce its newest publication, the CRMA
Journal, which will be printed annually and will contain the Centre’s A and
A* journal articles from the previous year. Volume 1, containing articles
from 2010, has just been produced and we are looking forward to distributing
it at conferences and seminars throughout the year. This publication is
intended to showcase our Centre’s research excellence. Copies may be
obtained by emailing Rachel Gaetz at
rachel.gaetz@unisa.edu.au or
can be read online here.
22 September 2011
Anne Hawke Memorial Lecture
Series
The Anne Hawke Memorial Lecture is hosted by UniSA's Division of
Business each year in honour of Dr Anne Hawke. This years lecture will
feature CRMA Director Professor David Round, who will be presenting 'The
Regulation of Markets: Cure or Curse?'. For further information, please see:
http://www.unisa.edu.au/business/events/hawke/latest.asp
29 August 2011
Papers Presented in Athens
Two papers written by four members of the CRMA's cartel history team
were given at the 15th Annual Conference of the European Business History
Association, held at the National Technical University of Athens from 24-26
August 2011. Dr Kerrie Round and Professor Martin Shanahan delivered their
paper entitled "Creating the "Secret Register": The Background to the
Register of Trade Agreements in Australia 1967-1974". Professor David Round
was also in Athens to present the paper written with Dr Zdravka Brunkova
"Confirming the Crisis of Collusion: A First Look at the Contents of the
Australian Register of Restrictive Agreements".
24 August 2011
Researcher of the Month
Congratulations to the Division of Business Research Office
‘Researcher of the Month’ Dr Manish Agarwal! Manish is a Research Fellow
currently assisting in a business history project on cartels in Australia in
the twentieth century undertaken by the CRMA. He is also working on two CRMA
contract research projects in the areas of harbour towage services and
online search engines.
19 August 2011
ICOMP Canberra Forum
On 17 August, ICOMP (Initiative For A Competitive Online Marketplace)
held a forum on ‘Innovation and the Digital Economy: A Regulatory
Challenge?’ at the Hyatt Hotel in Canberra. The Forum discussed the work of
Foundem (the UK’s top vertical price comparison site) as well as the issues
of transparency, equal access and fairness in online search engines and the
effect that regulatory processes could have.
The event was chaired by CRMA Advisory Board member, Dave Poddar, who is a
partner in the international law firm Allen & Overy. Among the five
panellists were Professor David Round, Director of the CRMA; Billy Tucker,
CEO, Cudo (Australia’s largest group buying site); Shivaun Raff, CEO,
Foundem; Peter Strong, Executive Director of COSBOA (Council of Small
Business of Australia); and Paul Simos, General Manager of Strategy &
Corporate Development, REA Group (Real Estate Agents Group).
3 August 2011
18th Pacific Rim Real Estate
Society (PRRES) Conference - Call for Papers
CRMA members Dr Valerie Kupke and Dr Geoff Page have been actively
involved in preparations for the forthcoming 18th Pacific Rim Real Estate
Society (PRRES) Conference to be held in Adelaide 15-18 January 2012.
Valerie is President Elect of the PRRES and Geoff is Conference Coordinator
of the event.
The conference theme is 'Property: Nexus of Place & Space', which focuses on
the contribution of property to economy and to community, seeks to cover a
wide range of research areas including property development, property
investment & finance, property education, property management, valuation,
spatial analysis and property markets; urban, regional and rural.
The conference offers the opportunity for presentation of both refereed and
non-refereed papers as well as the opportunity for publication in PRRES's
refereed journal, the Pacific Rim Property Research Journal. Abstracts are
to be submitted by 12 August 2011.
Further information on the 2012 PRRES Conference including abstract
submission details can be found at
http://www.prres.net/Conference/2012conference.htm
28 July 2011
CRMA Digest #5
This week our latest CRMA digest (#5) was published. It contains news
on the Centre's latest activities and publications.
Click here for a
link to all our digests, including our most recent version.
21 July 2011
SymposiumSA 2011
On 20 July Flinders University hosted the third Annual SymposiumSA
conference for PhD students in the three Adelaide Universities. Two papers
each were presented by PhD students in the fields of economics/regulation,
accounting and finance (6 papers in all). Adam Loch and Luke Liu from the
CRMA presented papers to the economics/regulation section.
Adam’s paper, co-authored with Sarah Wheeler and Henning Bjornlund from the
CRMA and Dr Dustin Garrick of Oxford University, entitled Restructuring the
balance: Using temporary trade to supplement water availability for
environmental flows in the Murray-Darling Basin was awarded the prize for
Best Economics/Regulation Paper, and also the Best Overall Paper prize.
This is the third time that the event has been held, and now also the third
time that a CRMA PhD student has won the Best Overall Paper prize (previous
winners were George Shan in 2008, and Manish Agarwal in 2010 [also a
double-prize winner]).
Congratulations, Adam!
18 July 2011
CRMA develops new research project
This July, the CRMA signed a contract research agreement to begin a
project with an International Towage Services Provider. The project will
analyse harbour towage services in multiple ports around Australia.
24 June 2011
CRMA member, Professor Rick Sarre's study
discussed in a story for InDigest, 30 June 2011.
The article examines the results of the three year study, "Private
Security and Public Interest: Exploring Private Security Trends and
Directions for Reform in the New Era of Plural Policing", completed by
Professor Rick Sarre, from the University of South Australia's Centre for
Regulation and Market Analysis and Professor Tim Prenzler from Griffith
University's Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security.
Click here to read the article.
20 June 2011
Sustainable Irrigation Conference 2012
The CRMA is organising next years Sustainable Irrigation Conference
in conjunction with the Wessex Institute of Technology. For more information
on the conference and to download the Call for Papers brochure, please
follow this link:
http://www.unisa.edu.au/crma/sustainableirrigation2012.asp
17 June 2011
CRMA member, Professor Rick Sarre publishes
research
Professor Rick Sarre, from the University of South Australia's Centre for
Regulation and Market Analysis, and Professor Tim Prenzler from Griffith
University's Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security, received an
Australian Research Council (ARC) grant to undertake research into the
private security industry and its relationship with policing generally. The
final report entitled, "Private Security and Public Interest: Exploring
Private Security Trends and Directions for Reform in the New Era of Plural
Policing", was published in April 2011.
Professors Sarre and Prenzler, with the support of the Australian
Security Industry Association Limited (ASIAL), and its CEO Bryan de Caires,
explored the expansion of the policing and security roles undertaken by the
private sector in Australia. Their research assessed the growth and impact
of the sector and evaluated current regulatory mechanisms. Additionally,
their research identified and assessed partnership arrangements with the
public sector, reviewed legal issues and analysed security officer
occupational and public safety.
Their research now provides an update on the expansion of the security industry in Australia, along with options for improving private security regulation; improving safety for private security personnel and the public; clearer legal protection for security personnel; and advice on preferred models for private / public policing relationships. Click here for more information
8 June 2011
Latest CRMA publication in the
International Journal of Industrial Organization
Professor David Round and former PhD student Shane Zhang, now at the
University of Southern Queensland, have just published their fourth
international paper arising out of Shane’s highly regarded thesis. Entitled
“Price wars and price collusion in China’s airline markets”, it is the lead
article in the A-ranked journal International Journal of Industrial
Organization, Vol 29, July 2011, pp. 361-372.
27 May 2011
9th Annual UniSA Competition and Consumer
Workshop - Program announced.
The program for this year's Competition and Consumer Workshop (previously known as the Trade Practices Workshop) has now been
announced. The Workshop is to be held at the Adelaide Convention Centre on
Friday 14 and Saturday 15 October 2011. This year's Workshop features an
exciting breadth of national and international speakers and commentators.
Click here to view this year's program.
18 February 2011
CRMA Senior Research Fellow, Dr Sarah
Wheeler has been quoted in a story in the Australian, 15 February 2011.
The story has stemmed from a paper written by Sarah, Dr Dustin Garrick, Adam
Loch, Associate Professor Henning Bjornlund and Dr Rosalind Bark (CSIRO)
that argues the federal government should consider incorporating allocation
water trade into the buy-back to deliver higher levels of environmental
water.
The paper utilised simple scenario analysis based on our extensive
Goulburn-Murray trade data to calculate what could have been purchased using
the same budget and 10-year timeframe (2001-2010). We estimate that up to 10
times more water could have been recovered in the period, and that
purchasing could have continued for another 10 years after 2010.
Click here to read the article.
