Climate change has dominated policy debates in recent times, particularly in relation to energy markets. Understanding and responding intelligently to its complex challenges is a primary concern for Governments, regulators, market participants and investors.

Our main areas of advice to clients are:

• Policy design, implementation and impact assessment
• Market advisory for market participants and investors

Australia’s complex energy sector is critical to the welfare of the nation and faces a number of challenges due to concerns about the level of competition in the market, prices, regulatory settings, climate change, ownership and governance.

Areas of expertise:

• Electricity industry restructuring and reform
• Electricity market design and regulation
• Network regulation
• Energy market modelling
• Climate change policy and renewables markets
• Gas market design and regulation
• Mergers, privatisation and transactions

Our advice helps clients make better decisions in the evolving world of financial services, which are increasingly subject to regulatory change, political scrutiny, credit and sovereign debt market crises, new technologies, and changing consumer expectations.

We understand these pressures well.  Using insights from the latest developments in economics we help our clients:

• Understand market dynamics, and the changing behaviour of customers and competitors
• Design practical commercial strategies
• Frame powerful and persuasive regulatory arguments.

Media markets are constantly evolving. The massive growth of high speed internet is fundamentally changing how we consume media. It has also created new platforms and opportunities for content providers, but challenged a number of existing business models.

We advise on:

• Shaping media policy
• Creating successful strategies
• Developing effective regulatory policies
• Enabling competition in media markets.

Understanding and addressing environmental and natural resource issues is becoming more important as matters such as climate change, urban expansion, and the exploitation of increasingly scarce resources can seriously impact on the economy and our level of wealth.

Specific areas where we work regularly with clients include:

• Water
• Climate change adaptation and mitigation
• Environmental policy
• Natural resource management (NRM), agriculture and biosecurity.

Our work is grounded in the economics of how consumers and competitors behave. For every commercial action there are customer and competitor reactions – sometimes desirable and sometimes not.

Looking at how customers respond to price changes, understanding market power and how businesses react to competitive changes in their market are essential parts of our work.

Our toolkit for work in the retail and consumer sector includes:

• Competition theory
• Market analysis
• Financial modelling and;
• Practical research experience.

Recent advances in telecommunications have had a profound effect on the economy and society. We take for granted the ability to access information and communicate wherever we are. This led to new ways of working and new global supply chains of goods, services and knowledge.  It has also generated new forms of social communication and entertainment.

Our economic analysis provides a valuable toolkit for stakeholders to understand:

• what is driving change
• what is affecting the competitive environment
• how to set goals and implement the best strategies to meet their objectives

Transport systems have undergone radical reform over the past decade in Australia and New Zealand. These changes have created opportunities to improve commercial or consumer outcomes. Understanding the economics behind reform allows our clients to make the most of these opportunities.

Our experience extends to advice to:

• Airports, airlines and other users of airports (including hire car operators and taxis)
• Rail operators and rail users
• Port providers and users
• State regulators, the competition authorities and government departments and agencies in both Australia and New Zealand.

Over the past decade, Australia has experienced drought and flood in regional and urban areas. Managing water resources has become increasingly complex in the face of challenges.

We advise clients on:

• Industry reform and institutional design
• The design and implementation of pricing and regulatory regimes
• Competition and third party access
• The design and operation of water markets
• Long-term investment strategies and resource planning.