Bryce is a Senior Fellow at The New Zealand Initiative, and also the Director of the Wellington-based economic consultancy firm Capital Economics. Prior to setting this up in 1997 he was a Director of, and shareholder in, First NZ Capital. Before moving into investment banking in 1985, he worked in the New Zealand Treasury, reaching the position of Director. Bryce holds a PhD in economics from the University of Canterbury and was a Harkness Fellow at Harvard University. He is a Fellow of the Law and Economics Association of New Zealand.
Bryce is available for comment on fiscal issues, our poverty, inequality and welfare research. He also has a strong background in public policy analysis including monetary policy, capital markets research and microeconomic advisory work.
Latest reports:
Work in Progress: Why Fair Pay Agreements would be bad for labour (2019)
KiwiBuild: Twyford's Tar Baby (2019)
Fit for Purpose? Are Kiwis getting the government they pay for? (2018)
Recipe for disaster: Building policy on shaky ground (2018)
Welfare, Work and Wellbeing: From Benefits to Better Lives (2017)
The Inequality Paradox: Why inequality Matters Even Though it has Barely Changed (2016)
Poorly Understood: The State of Poverty in New Zealand (2016)
Reducing Unnecessary Regulatory Costs (2015)
A Matter of Balance: Regulating Safety (2015)
Investing for success: Social Impact Bonds and the future of public services (2015)
Phone: +64 4 472 5986
This submission is in response to the second round of consultation on Phase 2 of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act review. Read more
These are strange times, even for economists. Fearmongers are urging governments to pump up their spending in order to maintain economic activity. Read more
Alan Duff’s latest book – A Conversation with My Country: Where we have come from. Where we can go. – takes a characteristically thoughtful and constructive look at the pockets of pathological behaviours our welfare state has nurtured for decades. Read more
Bryce Wilkinson talks to Peter Williams on Magic Talk about our report Work in Progress: Why Fair Pay Agreements would be bad for labour. He discusses the findings of the Fair Pay Agreements Working Group and explains why Fair Pay Agreements will not improve productivity. Read more
The government’s goal of a highly skilled and innovative workforce and an economy that delivers well-paid, decent jobs and broad-based gains from economic growth and productivity, is a laudable aim. Read more
We cannot vouch for the authenticity of the following conversation that mysteriously arrived in my Inbox. The sender’s name was Dante, surely a fake. Read more
The Organisation for Economic Corporation and Development’s latest economic survey of New Zealand was published last week. Read more
There is too much critical tosh in the public domain these days about GDP (gross domestic product). Read more
A Radio New Zealand journalist reported in the last fortnight that other top economists privately shared Eric Crampton’s publicly expressed concerns over Treasury’s economic capability. Yesterday, Treasury’s former deputy chief economist went public on the malaise in the organisation. Read more
The government has largely put the KiwiBuild and capital gains tax fiascos behind it. Read more
Remember former finance minister Steven Joyce’s claim that Labour’s fiscal plan for its 2017 general election campaign had an $11.7 billion “hole”? Read more
Oscar Wilde once quipped that a cynic was “a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing”. That saying has since migrated to refer to economists. Allegedly, our depraved profession values only money. But for our widespread incompetence we would all be rich. In fact, deep down economics is about value, not cash. Economists do not loaf around in universities and government agencies to get rich. Read more
Wellington Mayor Justin Lester says NZ Bus is up to 40 drivers short, with up to 30 cancelled services a day. He now wants the Transport Minister to help improve local bus services. Local National List MP Nicola Willis also wants central government to step in. A sceptic might ask what that means for local government accountability to the local community. The answer is of course that it perpetuates the status quo – inglorious role confusion. Read more
The government is hyping Budget 2019 as a world-leading “Wellbeing Budget”. The December 2018 Budget Policy Statement proclaims the government’s key focus on improving the wellbeing and living standards of New Zealanders. Do the public have any real evidence of any substance behind such froth? It appears not. Government policies can be expected to improve overall community wellbeing if an authoritative analysis demonstrates that the benefits will exceed the costs to those affected, in some overall sense. Read more
In the mid‐1980s, New Zealand was forced into a major economic restructuring. Those adjustments were particularly significant for the traded goods sector, since export subsidies and import barriers were largely eliminated. Some may see the UK's possible trade restructuring after Brexit as retracing some of New Zealand's steps. Read more