About Reckon > Staff > Nicholas Francis
Nicholas Francis (Partner)
![[Nicholas Francis]](/photo-nf.jpg)
Nicholas Francis is one of Reckon LLP’s founding partners. He has worked as an economic consultant since 2000. Most of his professional experience is in the fields of regulation and competition economics.
Nicholas has led projects for clients in the utilities sector on the analysis of productivity and expenditure data as part of regulatory price control reviews. He has provided advice on the assessment of abuse of dominant position cases, and on the potential market impact of various publicly-funded BBC services. He has also contributed to a number of economic research projects for the European Commission.
Articles available on the Reckon website
- State aid law and the BBC Charter review, November 2005 (4 pages, PDF)
- Regulation of Sky's conditional access charges, November 2005
- On Genzyme, October 2004 (13 pages, PDF)
- iTunes: does competition law hold the key to a closed shop? Sep. 2004 (4 pages, PDF)
- Cross-promotion on TV: time to change the rules? August 2004 (2 pages, PDF)
Selected contributions to published reports
- Cave and Walker reviews (2009) Cross subsidies, price structures and competition in the England and Wales water industry
Report available from Defra website (136 pages, PDF)
Reckon was commissioned to provide research to support the independent review of competition and innovation in water markets, led by Professor Martin Cave, and the independent review of household charging, led by Anna Walker. Nicholas Francis led the work and was the main author of the report. The report examines charging arrangements in the water industry and considers how these might be affected by the development of new forms of competition within the industry.
- Ofwat (2009) PR09 Scope for efficiency studies
Report available from Ofwat website (190 pages, PDF)
Nicholas Francis led Reckon's work in 2008 to advise Ofwat on unit cost trends in the water and sewerage industry. The work was commissioned as part of the 2009 price control review. The report presents analysis of historical changes in a number of different measures of operating and capital costs. It also provides forecasts of the growth in water and sewerage industry operating expenditure and unit capital expenditure over the price control period from 2010 to 2015.
- Reckon / Spectrum (2006) Market impact of proposed BBC HD TV channel
Redacted version of report available from BBC website (45 pages, PDF)
Nicholas Francis worked with Spectrum Strategy Consultants to advise BBC Management as part of BBC Management's application to the BBC Trust to launch a high definition television channel. He was lead author of a preliminary market impact assessment of the proposed new channel. The launch of the channel was formally approved by the BBC Trust in November 2007.
- Ofcom (2004) Market impact of the BBC's new digital TV and radio services
View the Ofcom report on the DCMS website (62 pages, PDF)
This Ofcom report was commissioned by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, as part of the independent reviews of the BBC's digital television and radio services. Nicholas Francis led Reckon's support to Ofcom. This focused on the development and application of an approach that considered the impact of the BBC's new services on competition.
- Philip Graf (2004) Independent review of BBC Online
View the Graf report on the DCMS website (104 pages, PDF)
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport commissioned Philip Graf to undertake an Independent Review of BBC Online in August 2003. Nicholas Francis, Franck Latrémolière and Pedro Fernandes, then at Europe Economics, provided advice to Philip Graf on the market impact component of that review, which is reflected in Chapters 5 and 7 of the Graf report.
- Market definition in the media sector: economic issues (2002)
View the Europe Economics report on the DG Competition website (146 pages, PDF)
Nicholas Francis and Franck Latrémolière, then at Europe Economics, were the main authors of this research report commissioned by DG Competition of the European Commission. The report considers media market definition in detail. The report draws first on a review of the economics of the media sector to identify the methodological issues that could render market definition analysis particularly challenging and, second, on a review of the problems that have arisen in practice, with attention to previous decisions by the Commission.