Andrea Pezzoli (MSc Industrial Economics, 1985, Fylde) recounts some of his memories of his year as a Master's student in the 1980s which helped to secure his role ultimately as Deputy Secretary General for the Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato in Italy before retiring last year in 2024.

"Forty (yes, forty) years ago I obtained a M.Sc. in Industrial Economics at Lancaster University.

I’ve great memories of my university days. As a post graduate student I lived in Fylde College (I still have the t-shirt and the scarf!), a three story block, where the telephone was located at the second storey, the female one. At that time, mobile phones and internet were not born yet. I could still survive and, not only because of the telephone, I had the opportunity to get in touch with other post graduates (not only females…) who were following other courses.

I can’t forget Joanna Cheung, from Hong Kong, who woke me when my parents called from Italy in the early morning (she called me “big brother”), or Marina, from Athens (whose surname I can’t remember, sorry…), or Kim Patel (an Anglo-Indian student from London), or Stuart Handley (a Ph.D. student, who looked just like Panoramix, the bard of Asterix’s comics, a tennis addict and my tennis partner when we played against York University). Rebecca (from Singapore), a Mexican student (whose name I forgot and who I unsuccessfully fell in love with), Lesley (from Canada) and Tim are other faces and names that belong to that beautiful period.

But “my life after Lancaster” – and mostly my professional life - has been significantly affected by the lectures and the seminars held by Paul Ferguson (who even mentioned my dissertation in his textbook “Industrial Economics: Issues and Perspectives”) and Bob Rothschild (who was my dissertation’s supervisor). It is mainly their “fault” if I became “perversely” attracted by competition policy and antitrust.

In the middle of the eighties, Italy had not yet a competition law and an antitrust authority but, when it was established in 1990, the skills I developed in Lancaster became particularly precious.

In 1994 I joined the newly established authority (Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato) where I spent thirty years (?!). I just retired (at the end of 2024), after having reached the position of Deputy Secretary General and after having performed as Director General for Competition and as Chief Economist.

I have lectured Industrial Economics and Competition Policy in several universities. Currently, I teach Competition Policy at the University of Tor Vergata in Rome.

In my academic efforts, in the articles I write and in the conferences where I’m invited to speak, I still benefit from Paul and Bob’s suggestions. The non-ideological interpretation of the Austrian economics provided by Paul Ferguson and Bob Rothschild’s fascinating lessons on the collusive strategies of firms have been key in my professional life.

However, what I owe to my University days in Lancaster are not only better skills in industrial economics, but also the opportunity of rich human relationships. The conversations with other professors or lecturers from other departments as Jim Taylor (Labour Economics) and Luciano Cheles (Italian Studies) were particularly helpful in introducing me in the University social life and in understanding what was going on at that time in the UK (the miners’strike, the Thatcherism…). Every day relationships and friendships with international and British students, students with different cultures, habits and traditions have been equally key.

Therefore, I do not exaggerate if I say that the whole experience in Lancaster still plays an important role in my life (at least, as unforgettable and positive memories). I don’t think it merely depends on nostalgia of those days. I don’t like nostalgia..."