patrick library web 1

Dr Patrick Carvalho

Former Research Fellow

Dr Patrick Carvalho is a Research Fellow at The New Zealand Initiative, with extensive international experience in public policy across academia, public organisations and private sector.

Prior to immigrating to New Zealand, Dr Carvalho worked as the Head of the Economic Studies Division at the Federation of Industries of Rio de Janeiro, producing research on fiscal and monetary matters, and as a Research Fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney, where he focused on industrial relations and competition policy. More recently, Dr Carvalho was a Director at a Washington, D.C.-based consultancy advising the U.S. Federal Administration on the challenges of demographic shifts to economic prosperity.

Dr Carvalho has Bachelor of Law degree from Rio de Janeiro’s State University, a Master’s in political science from the University of Wollongong, and a PhD in economics from the Australian National University, where he also worked as a lecturer in macroeconomic policy.

Latest reports:
Pricing Out Congestion: Experiences from abroad (28 January 2020)
The Price is Right: The road to a better transport system (5 November 2019)
Policy Point: The Pitfalls of CGT (February 2019)
Submission: Local Government Funding and Financing (February 2019) 

Phone: 04 494 9101

Email: info@nzinitiative.org.nz

Recent Work

singapore

Congestion pricing: Lessons from abroad

Chronic road congestion is a global epidemic, plaguing poor and rich countries alike. In dozens of cities around the world, from Bogota to Rome, from Moscow to Boston, from Toronto to Dhaka, from Sydney and Melbourne to Auckland and Wellington, the average motorist wastes more than a hundred hours every year idling behind the wheels in overcrowded routes. Read more

Dr Patrick Carvalho
Insights Newsletter
31 January, 2020
transport london

Congestion charges: we have the tech, we have the proof

Chronic road congestion is a global epidemic, plaguing poor and rich countries alike. In dozens of cities around the world, from Bogota to Rome, from Moscow to Boston, from Toronto to Dhaka, from Sydney and Melbourne to Auckland and Wellington, the average motorist wastes more than a hundred hours every year idling behind the wheels in overcrowded routes. Read more

Dr Patrick Carvalho
Newsroom
28 January, 2020
traffic jam 3

Congestion charges promoted as best solution

Congestion pricing, which charges drivers a user fee at peak times in overcrowded routes, can solve New Zealand’s shocking congestion woes, according to a new report launched this week by The New Zealand Initiative. Transport experts consistently agree congestion pricing is the single most-effective way to deal with chronic traffic bottlenecks while providing incentives to increase the use of public transport. Read more

Dr Patrick Carvalho
The National Business Review
8 November, 2019
Traffic jam

World's first free traffic congestion solution

Chronic road congestion is taking a toll on the mobility of goods, services and people in New Zealand's major urban centres, costing us more than a billion dollars every year on wasted hours idling in traffic. In Auckland, for instance, drivers spend an average 40 minutes of extra time delayed in traffic during their daily commute. Read more

Dr Patrick Carvalho
The NZ Herald
8 November, 2019
Traffic6

The Price is Right

Chronic road congestion is taking a toll on the mobility of goods, services and people in New Zealand’s major urban centres, costing us over a billion dollars every year on wasted hours idling in traffic. That means lower productivity growth (i.e. Read more

Dr Patrick Carvalho
Insights Newsletter
8 November, 2019
PC NBR radio 5 Nov

A bipartisan approach needed to solve road congestion

Our new report, The Price is Right: The road to a better transport system, by Patrick Carvalho, calls for bipartisan political support for the introduction to congestion pricing. The report argues congestion charging - where road users pay charges based on distance, time, location and vehicle type and weight - can promote funding transparency and accountability while addressing the increasing congestion woes in New Zealand. Read more

Dr Patrick Carvalho
The National Business Review
5 November, 2019
Auckland highway

Tackling our road congestion problem

Dr Patrick Carvalho discusses his new report, The Price is Right: The road to a better transport system, with Mike Hosking on Newstalk ZB. He highlights the benefits of a revenue-neutral congestion charging system that would help to solve the increasing congestion levels in New Zealand. Read more

Dr Patrick Carvalho
Newstalk ZB
5 November, 2019
USA cash

Red flags at the Fed

Last Thursday, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank pledged to offer on a daily basis at least $120 billion of cash injections in the short-term money market, up from the initial $75 billion supply agreed last month. Read more

Dr Patrick Carvalho
Newsroom
28 October, 2019
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In Praise of Scientific Evidence

“Our goal is to make sure the fight against poverty is based on scientific evidence,” Esther Duflo said shortly after becoming the second woman (and also the youngest economist, at 46) to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics. Duflo, along with her husband, Abhijit Banerjee, and Michael Kremer, received this year’s top economics award “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty”. Read more

Dr Patrick Carvalho
Insights Newsletter
18 October, 2019
facebook button

Facebook's Libra and the new currency wars

A common saying about the various stages of social acceptance is: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win." A decade after Bitcoin was born, cryptocurrencies are about to enter the "fight" phase in their quest to become a mainstream means of payment. That is all due to Libra, a new global digital currency that a Facebook-led coalition plans to launch as early as next year. Read more

Dr Patrick Carvalho
New Zealand Herald
16 October, 2019
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How to lose an election

Although at very early stages, the Democratic Party’s process to choose its presidential nominee has thrown up three leading figures, two completely opposite policy platforms, and one likely outcome. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders represent the progressive winds of change in the Democratic Party, proposing policies that, if implemented, would radically change long-standing institutions in America. Read more

Dr Patrick Carvalho
Newsroom
2 October, 2019
The Matrix

The fight against the machine

Artificial intelligence will soon steal all our jobs, subjecting humans to the whims of a small and privileged capital-owner elite. At least, that is a recurring conspiracy in apocalyptical sci-fi movies or in the minds of modern luddites. Read more

Dr Patrick Carvalho
National Business Review
20 September, 2019

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