Frank A. Wolak

Dr. Frank A.
Wolak is a Research Associate at Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung GmbH.
Also, he is the Holbrook Working Professor of Commodity Price Studies in the Economics Department and the Director of the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development at Stanford University.
He specializes in the study of privatization, competition, and regulation in network industries such as electricity, telecommunications, water supply, natural gas, and postal delivery services.
Wolak’s recent research has focused on the design and monitoring of energy and environmental markets.
He works in close cooperation with the research unit "Environmental and Climate Economics".
From April 1998 to April 2011, he was Chair of the Market Surveillance Committee (MSC) of the California Independent System Operator.
In this capacity, he has testified numerous times at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and at various committees of the US Senate and House of Representatives on issues relating to market monitoring and market power in electricity markets.
Topics addressed in this testimony include FERC’s role in the design of the California electricity market, the factors leading to the California electricity crisis, the role of the Enron trading strategies in the California electricity crisis, and lessons from the California electricity crisis and Enron bankruptcy for the design of effective regulatory oversight of wholesale energy markets.
He received his undergraduate degree from Rice University, and an S.M.
in Applied Mathematics and Ph.D.
in Economics from Harvard University.