• Moderating: George Baker, Baker and Associates
• Dagobert "Bob" Brito, Rice University
• Mariano Gurfinkel, University of Texas Center for Energy Economics
• Peter Hartley, Rice University

Dagobert L. “Bob” Brito
Professor Dagobert L. Brito has been teaching at Rice University for more than 22 years. His research focuses on economics of defense, energy economics, disengagement in the Middle East, optimal tax theory and economics of law.

Brito and Dr. Michael Intriligator's paper, “Conflict, War and Redistribution”, analyzed the circumstances under which conflict leads to the outbreak of war using a model incorporating both the redistribution of resources as an alternative to war and imperfect information. It is the first paper demonstrating that a war could be an outcome of rational behavior.

In 1995, Brito and Professor Peter Hartley, also a faculty member of Rice, published a paper on consumer rationality and credit cards, arguing the rationality of borrowing on credit cards at high interest rates. This work influenced the bankruptcy bill which is passed in 2005.

His research extends to the strategies of regulating energy markets as well. He and Juan Rosellon, who received his PhD at Rice, applied the Little-Mirrlees rule to pricing natural gas and liquid petroleum gas in Mexico. Now he is working on economics of solar power under sponsorship of Baker Institute.

Brito enjoys being involved with public policy. He has a close relationship with the Mexican government. Recently, he was elected a corresponding member of the Academia Mexicana de Ciencias (Mexico Academy of Sciences). He also serves as external professor at Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, A. C., Mexico.
 
Mariano Gurfinkel
Dr. Gurfinkel's main area of interest is the development and implementation of technology for unconventional resources, with special focus on producing and handling heavy oil.  At the CEE, Dr. Gurfinkel serves as the team leader for liquefied natural gas research and outreach in addition to working on unconventional resources. 

Before joining CEE, Dr. Gurfinkel was responsible for the establishment of the Center for Energy and Technology of the Americas at Florida International University with support from the US Department of Energy.

Prior to CETA, Dr. Gurfinkel led technology development efforts on heavy oil at the research and development center of PDVSA. 

Dr. Gurfinkel holds 3 patents, Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.S. degree with honors in mechanical engineering from Universidad Simon Bolivar, Venezuela.

Peter Hartley
Peter Hartley grew up on a farm in Australia, roughly 500 miles (800 kilometers) north of Sydney. In 1974, he completed an honours degree at the Australian National University, majoring in mathematics. He worked for the Priorities Review Staff, and later the Economic Division, of the Prime Minister's Department in the Australian Government while completing a Masters Degree in Economics at the Australian National University in 1977. He obtained a Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Chicago in 1980. From 1980 to 1986 he was an Assistant Professor of Economics at Princeton University. He moved to Rice University as an Associate Professor of Economics in September 1986 and was promoted to a Full Professor in 1993. He was chair of the Department of Economics at Rice University from 2000 to 2005.

Peter has worked for more than 25 years on energy economics issues, focusing originally on electricity, but including also work on gas, oil, coal, nuclear and renewables. He wrote on reform of the electricity supply industry in Australia throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, and advised the Government of Victoria when it completed the acclaimed privatization and reform of the electricity industry in that state in 1989. The Victorian reforms became the core of the wider deregulation and reform of the electricity and gas industries in Australia.

At Rice University, Peter has worked on energy economics with the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. Apart from energy and environmental economics, Peter has published research on theoretical and applied issues in money and banking, business cycles, and international finance.