Biography: Competition Economics

Edgard Antonio Pereira, senior partner of EDAP (Edgard Pereira & Associados), has been a professor in the economics theory department of the Economics Institute of Campinas University (UNICAMP) since 1983. Mr Pereira was born in Campinas, São Paulo, in March 1959, and holds a Bachelor's degree in economics from the Economics Institute of UNICAMP, a Master's degree and a doctorate in industrial economics from the Industrial Economics Institute of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

He was a visiting scholar in the department of economics at the University of California, Berkeley between 1995 and 1996, where he completed his studies to prepare a PhD thesis on pricing and inflation in Brazil.

In addition, he had a prolific public career, serving as director of the department of supply and prices for the Ministry of Economics, Finance and Planning in 1990; national economics secretary for the Ministry of Economics, Finance and Planning between 1990 and 1991; and finance secretary for the Municipal Government of Campinas in 1994. He was also a consultant for the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank for industrial policy issues related to Mercosur, and coordinator of several studies on industry and industrial economics. Between 2006 and 2007, he was chief economist of the Institute of Industrial Development Studies, a non-governmental organisation created by industrial leaders which prepares studies and analyses of economic development. He is the author of a number of articles published in specialised journals, and is a lecturer at several national and international conferences and seminars. He is also a non-governmental adviser at debates promoted by the International Competition Network, having attended the 2008 Annual Conference. He founded EDAP in 1991, a pioneering economics consulting firm specialised in antitrust, which has been rendering advisory services, opinions and studies in numerous cases submitted to the review of the Brazilian Antitrust Authorities, mainly concentration acts and administrative proceedings. He is also an economics expert who provides consulting services in regulatory matters, especially in the fields of telecommunications, energy and transportation.

In 2011 he was visiting researcher in the Centre d'Économie de la Sorbonne at the Université de Paris I, studying the recent developments of the cost transaction theory applied to antitrust and regulation.