Henry Ergas

Henry Isaac Ergas AO (born 22 August 1952) is an economist who has worked at the OECD, the Australian Trade Practices Commission (now the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) as well as at a number of economic consulting firms. He chaired the Australian Intellectual Property and Competition Review Committee set up by the Australian Federal Government in 1999 to review Australia's intellectual property laws as they relate to competition policy.

Career

Ergas received a first-class honours B.A. in economics at Sussex University and a Master of Economics with high distinction from the University of Queensland. He was adjunct professor of Economics at the National University of Singapore and has taught at Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University, the Centre for Research in Network Economics and Communications at the University of Auckland, Monash University and at the École nationale de la statistique et de l'administration économique (ENSAE Paris). Ergas was managing director of Network Economics Consulting Group (NECG) from 1996 until 2004 when it was acquired by CRA International where he became vice president and regional head, Asia Pacific. From 2009 to 2016, he was professor of infrastructure economics at the University of Wollongong, and also was a senior economic adviser to Deloitte Australia. He was an independent contributor to a paper submitted to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission which cautioned against imposing regulations that, while aimed at net neutrality, may cause costs that exceed the expected benefits.

In the 2016 Australia Day Honours, Ergas was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for "distinguished service to infrastructure economics, and to higher education, to public policy development and review, and as a supporter of emerging artists". He is a columnist for The Australian newspaper.

Personal life

Ergas descends from Sephardic Jews in Spain, who, after they were expelled in 1492, moved to Portugal, then to Livorno in Italy, Salonica (History of the Jews in Thessaloniki) in Ottoman Greece. Following a deterioration of relations to local Greeks in the aftermath of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey and the mass slaughter of Jews by the German Wehrmacht in 1943, they moved to Istanbul. After the increasing Islamization of the formerly secular Turkey of Kemal Atatürk, particularly the discriminatory tax Varlık Vergisi and wide ranging Turkification, they had to leave again.

Selected publications

• 1984 – "Why Do Some Countries Innovate More than Others?", Centre for European Policy Studies, CEPS Papers No. 5. Also available at https://ssrn.com/abstract=1430184 doi:10.2139/ssrn.1430184
• 1987 – "Does Technology Policy Matter?" in Technology and Global Industry: Companies and Nations in the World Economy, National Academy of Engineering of the United States, National Academies Press, Washington DC. Reprinted in Stephan, Paula E. and David B. Audretsch, (eds.), in The Economics of Science and Innovation, vol. 2, Elgar Reference Collection, International Library of Critical Writings in Economics, vol. 117, Cheltenham, U.K. and Northampton, Massachusetts, pp. 438–492. Also available at https://ssrn.com/abstract=1428246 doi:10.2139/ssrn.1428246.
• 2008 – Wrong Number: Resolving Australia's Telecommunications Impasse, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
• 2010 – "New policies create a new politics: issues of institutional design in climate change policy", Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 26 April {{DOI:10.1111/j.1467-8489.2010.00484.x}}
• 2011 – "Some Economic Aspects of Mining Taxation" (with Prof. Jonathan Pincus and Dr. Mark Harrison) Economic Papers of the Economic Society of Australia, 29(4).
• 2013 – (with Prof. Jonathan Pincus) "Have Mining Royalties been beneficial to Australia?", Economic Papers of the Economic Society of Australia, 33(1).
• 2015 – (with Prof. Jonathan Pincus), "Infrastructure and Colonial Socialism", in The Cambridge Economic History of Australia, eds. Simon Ville and Glenn Withers, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• 2016 – "Tocqueville, Hancock and the Sense of History" in "Only in Australia. The History, Politics and Economics of Australian Exceptionalism", Oxford University Press.
• 2016 – (with Prof. Jonathan Pincus), "The Wealth of the Nation" in Menzies, the Shaping of Modern Australia, ed. J. R. Nethercote, Conor Court publishing in association with the Menzies Research Centre.

Appointments

• 1997 – Member, Advisory Panel on Telecommunications Reform to the Minister for Communications and the Arts, Australia
• 1998 – Member, Commissione Scientifica, Telecom Italia, Rome, Italy
• 1999 – Chairman, Intellectual Property and Competition Review Committee, Attorney-General's Department, Australia
• 2001 – Lay Member, High Court of New Zealand
• 2002 – Editorial Board, The Review of Network Economics
• 2004 – Adjunct professor, School of Economics, National University of Singapore
• 2004 – Member, Australian Centre of Regulatory Economics (ACORE) Advisory Board
• 2004 – Member, French Ordre national du Mérite
• 2005 – Member, Prime Minister's Taskforce on Export and Infrastructure
• 2009 – Professor of Infrastructure Economics, SMART Infrastructure Facility, University of Wollongong
• 2009 – Senior Economic Adviser, Deloitte Australia
• 2013 – Member, NBN (National Broadband Network) Cost-Benefit Analysis and Review of Regulation Panel of Experts.
• 2016 – Officer of the Order of Australia

External links

• List of published papers, Social Science Research Network
• Profile and contributions, The Australian