Economics Cluster Information



Economics Research at the AGSM


AS ECONOMISTS IN A BUSINESS SCHOOL, we have been concerned with managerial issues that might not be of such prominence in a traditional economics department. In particular we are interested in the application of microeconomics to understanding how market structure and firm rivalries affect outcomes, both for firms and for consumers — that is, applied microeconomics, or industrial economics.

The Cluster, under the leadership of the late Professor Simon Domberger, has had a collaborative research stream with Serco, a prominent contractor, investigating the implementation of outsourcing. The team has looked at incentives, contract design, and outcomes in several large outsourcing cases, both in Australia and overseas.

Over the past few years industrial economics has gained from the use of game theory in the analysis of strategic competition and market structure. All members of the Cluster have been involved in applications of game theory:

  • in repeated interactions in markets with small numbers of sellers,
  • in auctions,
  • in price wars, and
  • in the emerging area of experimental economics, where interactions occur in laboratory settings which allow control over the information and settings not available in real-market interactions.
Other market issues we have addressed in both our research and our consulting are:
  • technology transfer,
  • regulation and privatisation of public-sector enterprises,
  • provision of health care,
  • Australian and world energy markets,
  • markets for illicit drugs and drug policy,
  • managerial compensation,
  • optimal incentive systems in hierarchies,
  • environmental economics.

Economics Cluster Faculty


Robin Stonecash
Head, Economics Cluster

Telephone: +61 2 9931 9562
Fax: +61 2 9931 9326
Webpage: http://www.agsm.edu.au/~bobm/cluster/robin.html
Email: robins@agsm.edu.au

    Research Interests:
    Industrial organisation and market structure;
    International trade and development;
    Regulation of public-sector enterprises; and
    Economics of health-care provision;
    Outsourcing,
    Contract design.

Robert Marks

Phone: +61 2 9931 9271
Fax: +61 2 9313 7279
Webpage: http://www.agsm.edu.au/~bobm
Email: r.marks@unsw.edu.au

    Research Interests:
    Oligopolistic behaviour;
    Productivity analysis;
    Duration analysis;
    Energy/environmental policy;
    Drugs policy;
    Labour markets.
    General editor of The Australian Journal of Management

Chongwoo Choe

Phone: +61 2 9931 9528
Fax: +61 2 9663 4672
Webpage: http://www.agsm.edu.au/~cchoe
Email: c.choe@agsm.edu.au

    Research Interests:
    Executive compensation;
    Optimal incentive system in hierarchy;
    Corporate governance in East Asia;
    Environmental policy in a federal system.

Benoît Julien

Phone: +61 2 9931 9324
Fax: +61 2 9662 7621
Webpage: Here.
Email: benoitj@agsm.edu.au

    Research Interests:
    Search;
    Matching;
    Frictional Labour Markets;
    Auctions;
    Industrial Organization.


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Last Updated 3 September 2005