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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
worked in a diverse range of public policy and other roles since 1981. He has
worked as:
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An economic policy
adviser to two Federal Government Ministers – Treasurer John Dawkins (1991 to
1994) and Industry Minister John Button (1981-85).
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He was appointed as
an Associate Commissioner to the Productivity Commission (1994 – 1997) where
he was Presiding Commissioner one inquiry and an industry study and Associate
Commissioner on five inquiries.
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He was Director of
the Business Council of Australia’s New Directions economic reform project
from 1997 to 2000.
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From 2000 he has
been CEO of Lateral Economics and Peach Discount Mortgage Broking.
Dr Gruen holds a PhD and BA Hons (First Class) from the ANU and a LLB Hons
from Melbourne University. He has published in national and international
academic journals on a range of issues from tariff reform to competition policy,
intellectual property, innovation in government and macro-economic policy.
He has been a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review and the
Courier Mail and has been a substantial contributor to Australia's thriving
policy blog scene at Club Troppo. He has consulted to the Department of Finance
and Deregulation on continuous improvement in regulation. He also directed
Lateral Economics consulting to the Department's agency AGIMO on its online
engagement trials. He was a member of the Government's 2008 Review into
Australia's Innovation System.
He is Chairman of National Forum which hosts the popular Online Opinion
website and is a board member of Sustainability Victoria.
He is excited to be leading the recently announced Government 2.0
Taskforce
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:
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preparation of
company submissions to the NSW regulator (IPART) on regulated retail prices
and retail licence compliance;
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testing and
evaluation of a retailer’s capacity to act as a retailer of last resort;
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development of
business procedures; and
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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:
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a study of The
Actual Cost of Waste Disposal in the ACT;
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assessment of the
potential for use of economic instruments (tradeable certificates) to achieve
environmental objectives in the waste oil industry;
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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;
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evaluation of the
Creating Youth Business Initiatives Regional Expansion Program; and
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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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