The event aims to bring together senior academics, doctoral students, researchers, and policymakers working on topics related to market regulation, competition policy, and empirical industrial organisation. The goal is to foster dialogue between academic research and policy application, and to build capacity in modern empirical tools for market analysis.
The event will open with a public lecture, “Empirical Methods in Competition and Regulation,” delivered by Professor Frank Verboven (KU Leuven), an internationally recognised expert in industrial organisation. His lecture will offer an overview of key empirical techniques used in competition analysis, illustrated with policy-relevant applications.
The workshop will feature presentations of research papers, followed by comments from discussants and open-floor discussion. We encourage contributions from academic researchers, doctoral students, and representatives of regulatory agencies. The event also includes dedicated networking sessions to promote collaboration and strengthen connections between the academic and policy communities in Southern Africa.
Should you wish to download the programme, you can find it below.
Keynote Speaker
Professor Frank Verboven is one of Europe’s leading economists in the fields of industrial organization, competition policy, and empirical methods in economics. He is a Professor of Economics at KU Leuven in Belgium, a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) in London, and a Co-editor of the American Economic Review.
His research focuses on industrial organization, particularly the econometric analysis of market power, with applications to competition policy and regulation. He has studied a wide range of topics—including mergers, cartels, vertical restraints, and market entry—across various industries such as automobiles, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, health care professions, and local services.
His work has been published in leading journals, including the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, American Economic Journal: Micro, RAND Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies, and Review of Economics and Statistics, among others. He teaches courses in industrial organisation, microeconomics, and empirical methods for competition policy.
Practical Information
Registrations for this event are now closed. For those attending, there is no registration fee. ERSA will cover accommodation costs for both local and international presenters of accepted papers, as well as local travel expenses for presenters based in South Africa. Participation is limited to a maximum of 30 attendees.
This event is being organised by Lukasz Grzybowski (University of Cape Town and ERSA) and should you have any queries, please email him here.
