Dr. Sean Ennis is a Professor at the University of East Anglia’s business school and Director of its Centre for Competition Policy. He has extensive experience in management, strategy, and economic policy focused on the interface between the private sector and government. At the University of East Anglia, he runs an internationally recognized research centre on markets, regulation and consumers. As part of this role, he was instrumental in the development, launch and implementation of innovative postgraduate programs. He founded a successful international course on regulatory economics and industrial organization for professionals and initiated a bespoke course on digital markets for ministries and regulators in the UK.

His research focuses on innovative sectors and economic impacts of incentives and contracts. He applies social science methods to business practices to understand how private companies and the state interact. His work has been published in journals like Applied Economics, the Journal of Industrial Economics, the Journal of Law and Economics, and the Oxford Review of Economic Policy, among others. He has published significant studies related to digital economy, energy, financial services, communications, and health care. He has presented expert views to the European Parliament and the UK Parliament. His studies and statements have been published by organisations such as the G20, the European Parliament, the OECD and the World Bank.

Alongside his academic career, he has consulted for the United Nations, OECD, Inter-American Development Bank and private companies. He co-authored and oversaw reports for regulatory agencies in Australia, EC, Greece, Mexico, the Philippines, Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. He has been involved in antitrust and regulatory proceedings with the European Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and the U.K.’s Competition & Appeals Tribunal. Such activities have both enriched his practice knowledge and ensured research relevance and impact.

From 2003-2018, he was a Senior Economist at the OECD. For two years during this time, he served as Executive Director of the Competition Commission of Mauritius, where he reported to the Prime Minister’s Office. At the OECD, he developed and led the competition assessment of regulations program to assess market impacts of government regulation. Prior to 2003 he worked as an economist at the European Commission’s DG Competition and at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, developing economic analyses for investigations involving business mergers and contracting.

He obtained an undergraduate degree in economics from King’s College at Cambridge University and a PhD in economics from the University of California at Berkeley.

My research deals with business contracting, innovation, and organizational structure in response to market developments and policy changes. The substantive areas include economic and organisational analysis of markets, with a focus on the digital, energy, health, and communications sectors. As a result of my focus on markets undergoing transformation, the research focuses on the underlying microeconomic and organisational mechanisms that drive economic growth, inequality and societal change.

business strategy, contractual incentives, innovation, competition economics, antitrust law and economics, regulated industries, digital, telecommunications, financial products, health economics, professions