Who we are
Lateral Economics is a network of
professionals with a wealth of experience and expertise in economic reform and public
policy. We draw on a range of people from a range of professional
backgrounds to meet clients' needs.
Our principals
are:
Nicholas Gruen
Lateral
Economics' CEO is Nicholas Gruen, an economist with an impressive record of achievement and experience in
the public sector, business groups and academia.
Dr Gruen has been:
An economic policy adviser to
two Federal Government Ministers - former Treasurer John Dawkins and former Industry
Minister John Button.
Presiding Commissioner of the
Productivity Commission's inquiry on Packaging and Labeling, which proposed a new model
for kerbside recycling. He also presided on an industry study and was an Associate
Commissioner on five inquiries.
Director of the Business Council
of Australia's innovative New Directions economic reform project, which initiated national
debate on new approaches to fiscal policy. Following favourable review in the Economist
magazine, Dr Gruen was invited to address the OECD Senior Budget Officials meeting in
Paris.
A persuasive player in the
development of many economic policy ideas, Dr Gruen's work on the Car Plan was instrumental in
changing the mind of the Productivity Commission about the role of export facilitation.
Dr Gruen holds a PhD from the
Australian National University. He has published widely in national media, trade and
academic journals on a wide range of issues from tariff reform to competition policy,
intellectual property and macro-economic policy. He is a regular commentator on ABC Radio.
Alex
Coram
Alex Coram is Professor of Political Economy in the Aberdeen Business School and Professor of Political Science at the University of Western Australia. He also holds an Honorary Professorship at the University of Tasmania.
He has worked for the Department of Infrastructure in Victoria on models of city development and on providing training programmes for senior management and has consulted for law firms on problems of contracting.
He specializes in solving non-standard problems particularly those involving applications of mathematical game theory, control theory and optimization theory more generally to problems in:
He has been
seconded to other universities in Australia to develop postgraduate
courses in public sector management and teaches in the MBA programme
in Aberdeen.
He has published two books and approximately 30 papers in international
scientific journals on such problems as the effect of luck on life
time wealth distribution; arms races; international capital flows;
political party competition for votes, and international environmental
management. He has also written a number of papers for government.
He is currently working on problems of water distribution and control
of large dynamic systems in business and government.
Philip
Hagan
Philip
Hagan partners with Lateral Economics on selected projects. He is
also principal of AustralAsia Economics. He is an economist with
extensive experience in policy making in the public sector, having
worked in senior positions in both Federal and State Governments.
After a long career at the Industries Assistance Commission, he
was an Assistant Secretary with its successor body – the Industry
Commission (which is now the Productivity Commission) and also with
the Health Department. He was also Deputy CEO of the South Australian
Development Council, where he worked on economic development issues.
Mr Hagan now works as a consultant to the public and private sectors.
Philip’s expertise
and background is in microeconomics. He also has extensive experience
in the field of health and ageing. He also worked for a period developing
quantitative models of the Australian economy and is familiar with
Australian economic statistics. Mr Hagan holds bachelor’s degrees
in science and economics and an MBA and is an Adjunct Research Fellow
with the University of South Australia.
Kenney Lin
Kenney Lin is the Proprietor of Kenney Lin & Associates and partners with Lateral
Economics. He has a Bachelor of Economics with Honours from the ANU and a Masters
Degree in economics from the London School of Economics.
Kenney has worked as an economist in Australia and Canada since 1971. He was Economic
Consultant and then Chief of Staff to the Federal Ministers for Industrial Relations and
Finance between 1988 and 1994. Between 1996 and 2000 he was Corporate Secretary for
Advance Energy, a NSW state owned electricity retailer and distributor. Since 2000 he
has been consulting to business and government, primarily in the area of energy economics.
Consultancies in the electricity industry have included:
preparation of company submissions to the NSW regulator (IPART) on regulated retail prices and retail licence compliance;
testing and evaluation of a retailer’s capacity to act as a retailer of last resort;
development of business procedures; and
preparation of an expert witness statement for the Industrial Relations Commission on the economic
importance of the electrical contracting industry.
Consultancies in other areas have included:
a study of The Actual Cost of Waste Disposal in the ACT;
assessment of the potential for use of economic instruments
(tradeable certificates) to achieve environmental objectives in the waste oil
industry;
assisting palm oil companies in Indonesia and Papua New
Guinea to gain certification for ISO 9000 Quality Management Systems and ISO
14000 Environmental Management Systems;
evaluation of the Creating Youth Business Initiatives
Regional Expansion Program; and
Analysis of data and drafting of the first National Survey
of the Sustainable Energy Industry.
Roger
Farrell
Roger Farrell is an Associate with the Asia Pacific School of Economics and Management at the Australian National University, a Senior Adviser to the Japanese Government in Australia and a Director of the Centre for Asia Pacific Research. Previously, he was a visiting fellow at Osaka University and worked with the Department of Industry, the Productivity Commission and the Federal Treasury.
Recently, Dr Farrell has published research on the ASEAN automotive industries, patterns of Japanese direct investment, Korean competition policy, and on the rise and decline of Japanese international real estate investment. He has been an adviser to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade,
UNCTAD, the World Bank and the APEC Business Advisory Council on a range of research areas, including Australia-Japan relations and Japanese higher education policy.
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