About Us > Our People > Dr Bryce Wilkinson

Dr Bryce Wilkinson

Senior Fellow

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:
Walking the path to the next global financial crisis (2021)
Illusions of History: How misunderstanding the past jeopardises our future (2021)
Policy Point: A risky place to do business (2021)
Policy Point: Is climate change a key risk to global financial stability? (2020)
Roadmap for Recovery: Briefing to the Incoming Government (2020)
Pharmac: The right prescription? (2020)
Research Note: Doing whatever it takes with someone else’s money (2020)
Policy Point: FDI: Unjustified Urgency (2020)
Research Note: Deficit spending in a crisis: why there is no such thing as a free lunch (2020)
Research Note: Quantifying the wellbeing costs of Covid-19 (2020)
Research Note: How bad might the lockdown be for jobs and income? (2020)
Work in Progress: Why Fair Pay Agreements would be bad for labour (2019)

Scroll down to read the rest of Bryce's work.

Phone: +64 4 472 5986

Email: bryce.wilkinson@nzinitiative.org.nz

Recent Work

Media release: Foresight economics correctly predicted New Zealand’s loss of price stability

Wellington (Thursday, 28 July 2022): In response to criticism of the Reserve Bank’s performance over the past four years, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have accused critics of applying ‘hindsight economics’. Nothing could be further from the truth. Read more

Dr Oliver Hartwich

+64 4 499 0790

View profile
Dr Bryce Wilkinson

+64 4 472 5986

View profile
Media Release
28 July, 2022

Podcast: How central bank mistakes after 2019 led to inflation

Central banks globally have made serious monetary policy mistakes, and to restore credibility, they must acknowledge and correct those mistakes. Oliver Hartwich interviews co-authors Graeme Wheeler and Bryce Wilkinson about their new policy paper How central bank mistakes after 2019 led to inflation. Read more

Dr Oliver Hartwich

+64 4 499 0790

View profile
Dr Bryce Wilkinson

+64 4 472 5986

View profile
Graeme Wheeler
Podcast
26 July, 2022

Reserve Bank made mistakes which led to out of control inflation

The New Zealand Initiative has denounced the Reserve Bank, and other central banks for making what it says are serious mistakes which led to inflation getting out of control. The paper, released this morning, says central banks were too confident in their abilities, their policies, and their assumptions, and forgot what their core jobs were. Read more

Dr Bryce Wilkinson

+64 4 472 5986

View profile
Radio NZ - Morning Report
26 July, 2022

Former Reserve Bank Governor says central bank may have added to global inflation

It’s not so much Russia or COVID that caused inflation but central banks and the extraordinary stimulus they helped create. That’s according to a former Reserve Bank Governor who’s co-authored an excoriating review of the role Central Banks played in our current inflationary crisis. Read more

Dr Bryce Wilkinson

+64 4 472 5986

View profile
Today FM - Tova O'Brien
26 July, 2022

How central bank mistakes after 2019 led to inflation

A research note released today by The New Zealand Initiative mainly attributes the outbreak of inflation in many economies to central bank mistakes. Co-authored by Graeme Wheeler, former Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, and Bryce Wilkinson, Senior Research Fellow at The New Zealand Initiative, the paper argues that central banks overall: were too confident about their monetary policy framework; were too confident about their models; were too confident they could control output and employment; lost their focus on price stability and took on too many mandates; faced conflicts in some cases with conflicting ‘dual mandate’ objectives; and were distracted by extraneous political objectives, such as climate change. Read more

Dr Bryce Wilkinson

+64 4 472 5986

View profile
Graeme Wheeler
Research Note
26 July, 2022

Policy Point: Faster trend Labour productivity growth after the ECA 1991

The New Zealand Initiative rebuts the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety’s claim to a select committee that New Zealand’s labour productivity growth rate since 1991 was 46% below that of Australia. On figures recently supplied by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, the correct figure was 30%. Read more

Dr Bryce Wilkinson

+64 4 472 5986

View profile
Policy Point
18 July, 2022

Get in touch

Thank you for your enquiry.

Stay in the loop: Subscribe to updates

Search