It is with great pleasure the Association honours Stuart Birks with the award of life membership of the NZ Association of Economists. Stuart arrived at Massey University in 1978, after a stint working in Israeli kibbutzims. He had a BA (Hons) from Essex and an Msc from London. A specialist in mathematical economics and econometrics, having studied under stalwarts like Michio Morishima, Amartya Sen, Frank Hahn, Meghnad Desai and William Gorman, among others, Stuart started increasingly to feel uneasy about the usefulness of the accepted methods and beliefs of economics generally and quantitative economics in particular. He switched to economic policy instead, using the tools of economic theory in a critical manner. Continue reading →

It is with great pleasure the Association honours John Yeabsley with the award of life membership of the NZ Association of Economists. The spring board to John’s career was the excellent academic preparation he received at the University of Canterbury. To an initial BSc in Mathematics he added a BA in Philosophy and Logic. This broad yet rigorous foundation was to serve him well throughout his career. Before leaving Canterbury, John realised that in fact economics was a discipline to which he could apply his mathematics and logic skills, and graduated with an MCom with First Class Honours in Economics.

John then completed a PhD at the University of Essex under the supervision of Sir Anthony Aitkinson. He recalls he was the only student to take New Zealander Rex Bergstrom’s econometrics class. He was also there at the same time as another New Zealander, Peter Phillips.

John has had a long and distinguished career as an economist in the New Zealand public service where he has held senior posts in the Department of Labour (including General Manager of the NZ Immigration Service) and the Department of Trade and Industry, as Assistant Secretary. John represented New Zealand as the Economic Counsellor with the Mission to the UN in Geneva. He is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the NZIER and from 1994 to 1997 was Director of the NZIER. Throughout his professional career, John has been, and still is, an active member of the Association.

John has a formidable reputation as a clear thinker and an uncanny ability to identify important insights on a wide range of problems in the public sector. He has served on or lead reviews of immigration policy, crime prevention, labour markets, tariffs and textiles, amongst others. His broad contributions to the public sector have been recognised through appointments to advisory boards in the Ministries of Justice and Social Development and in Statistics New Zealand.

In making this award we wish to honour John for his service to the profession, the wider New Zealand public, and the Association in particular. To all of these groups John has made numerous high quality contributions over a long period. He has been unfailingly generous in offering advice to colleagues and supporting junior economists.

John has:

1. Provided numerous acts of high quality service to the Association. He has refereed journal articles of New Zealand Economic Papers, and he has served on judging panels for a range of prizes.

2. Organised and facilitated conferences of the Association. Recently he was the co-chair for the highly successful 2008 NZAE/ESAM Conference in honour of AW Phillips in Wellington, the largest gathering of economists ever held in New Zealand. Throughout this endeavour his keen insights, knowledge of the profession and his highly personable approach to team work proved invaluable.

3. Served for an extended period on the Council culminating in his term as President of the Association from 1998 to 2001. During that time he undertook the important task of setting the Association’s administrative and financial procedures on a professional footing.

The Association honours John for the broad contributions he has made on many fronts, and has pleasure in awarding him life membership of the Association

Bert Brownlie was an early supporter and inaugural member of the New Zealand Association of Economists from its foundation in 1959. He served on the editorial board of its journal, New Zealand Economic Papers, from its first issue in 1966 to1980 and was its editor for four years, succeeding Frank Holmes and Ian McDougall in late 1969.

Bert held the view that the journal warranted support from his fellow economists at Canterbury and led by example with two articles, one jointly with a Canterbury colleague, in the first two issues of NZEP. Even before he became editor, Canterbury economists conspicuously contributed at least one-third of the articles in the journal. This ratio rose to nearly one-half during his editorship. And the share of theoretical and applied econometric material published in NZEP also increased markedly from 34% to 75% during his editorial stint. His own published work was largely in applied econometrics on various aspects of the New Zealand economy.

A very significant contribution of Bert Brownlie to the development of the economics profession in New Zealand lay in his efforts to bring a more mathematical-cum-quantitative pedagogic emphasis to the training of economists in line with overseas trends. Soon after he assumed the second chair in economics at Canterbury in 1965 and succeeded Alan Danks as Head of Department, Bert introduced two very important changes in degree regulations at Canterbury to tap the pool of talented students likely to be attracted by the mathematical and statistical applications of economics.

The first change, commonly known at Canterbury as the ” knight’s move “, enabled non-Commerce graduates with a strong mathematical and statistical background to skip introductory and intermediate second-year economics courses and embark on a two-year Masters programme in economics.

The second change was to introduce economics as a “majoring subject” in the Faculty of Science. This opened the possibility for very bright school-leavers to gain ” direct entry ” to the Honours school and complete a B Sc Honours degree in economics in three instead of four years.

The knight’s move programme began in 1967 with an initial intake of three students and was largely responsible for the large Masters economics classes in the period 1968 to the mid-1970s at Canterbury. Many of the students—-from chemistry, engineering, mathematics, physics and statistics and from other New Zealand universities—-were outstanding and went on after graduation to notable careers in academia and the New Zealand public and private sectors.

There is no doubt that the Canterbury Economics Department headed by Bert Brownlie was the largest supplier of economists with quantitative skills in New Zealand in the late 1960s and 1970s.

Bert’s other major contribution as an economist was to serve in a number of national and international committees, including the ECAFE Group of Experts on Programming Techniques (1968-69), NZ Consumer Price Index Revision Committee (1971), Commonwealth Experts Group on a New International Order (1975-77), Wage Hearing Tribunal (1976) and the Commonwealth Experts Group on the World Economic Crises (1980). He was also the Chairman of the New Zealand Monetary and Economic Council (1972-78) as well as the Australia-New Zealand Foundation (1978-83).

Finally, he was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canterbury in late 1978 to the great delight of many in the institution and his 20-year stewardship as its academic and administrative head was characterised by a lean, efficient and effective administration.

The Association is pleased to award a life membership to Bert for the important part he played in steering NZEP in its early life and his varied and invaluable contributions as mentor, educator, policy advisor and administrator.

It is with great pleasure the Association honours Grant Scobie with the award of life membership of the NZ Association of Economists. Grant, a multi-university attender, graduated in three countries (New Zealand, Australia and the USA) culminating with a PhD from the North Carolina State University. He has been, and still is, an active member of the
Association. His professional life has been varied; with longish spells of academic research and teaching broken up by time as a dedicated researcher and manager. He is currently a Principle Advisor with the Treasury a role that combines his interests in both research and policy.

He has made valuable research contributions over a sustained career, including publications on exchange rates, protection policy, agricultural productivity, and research and development. Recently he has been among the small group of analysts bring reason and empirical findings to bear on that most contentious of New Zealand public debates – retirement policy. In making this award we wish to honour Grant for his service to the profession, the wider New Zealand public, and the Association in particular. To all of these groups Grant has made numerous high quality contributions over a long period.

Grant has:

1. Provided numerous acts of high quality service to the Association. He has refereed journal articles of New Zealand Economic Papers, and he has served on judging panels for a range of prizes including the NZIER Economist of the Year Award.

2. Organised and facilitated conferences of the Association. Notably he was the instigator, co-chair and (informally) lead sponsorship “drummer” for the highly successful 2008 NZAE/ESAM Conference in honour of AW Phillips in Wellington, the largest gathering of economists in New Zealand.

3. Provided service and leadership to the Association by serving as Council Member (2001 to the present), Vice President (2003) and President, (2004 to 2007).

Grant’s infectious enthusiasm and dry wit have provided the platform for him to promote the image and interests of economics widely. Within the profession he is a natural team player whose work is characterised by many instances of joint authorship, and the active encouragement and promotion of more junior colleagues. His own achievements have been marked by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research Economics Award for 2004. He joins a small but select group who have received this prestigious award. This width of professional engagement means he is a natural model and mentor to many New Zealand economists.

The Association honours Grant for his broad economic citizenship and has pleasure in awarding him life membership of the Association.

March 2009

There were economists in New Zealand before Frank, but not many, and he provides a more or less direct link to the origins of the economics profession in New Zealand. There can be few economists in New Zealand now who have not benefited from his work, and that will be true of future economists too.

Frank was one of the founders of the Association, and he was the first editor of New Zealand Economic Papers. Throughout the first 50 years of the Association, while Frank was Macarthy Professor of Economics at Victoria University of Wellington, Economics Manager at Tasman Pulp & Paper Ltd., Professor of Money & Finance at VUW, Chair of the New Zealand Planning Council, a business director, and supposedly retired, he has maintained continuous interest in the Associations activities and been a more than occasional participant in them.

It is the range of Frank’s interests which is most impressive. His first contribution to New Zealand Economic Papers was “The Education of an Economist”[1]. Characteristically, Frank arranged for a response to his paper,[2] and it is no accident that the exchange serves as a starting point for a session at this year’s conference. Frank’s educational interests were wider than the education of economists, especially in his advocacy of the concept of human capital and of returns to investment in education to the Currie Commission in the early 1960s, in his work on educational priorities in the Education Development Council of the 1970s, and his long association with the NZ Council for Educational Research. However, of particular interest to the Association is that while during its 50 years the range and depth of economic knowledge has increased enormously, what has been constant is Frank’s advocacy of opportunities for young members to learn and to apply whatever part of it interests them.

The second characteristic of Frank’s engagement with economics and the Association has been his interest in applying economic knowledge. He kept alive as long as possible the earlier ideal of the Economic Society of Australia and New Zealand that it should connect academic economics with business and public life. Similarly, he supported the Australia and New Zealand Association of Science as a vehicle for economists to talk to other disciplines. And within the Association, he sought an outward-looking stance. Specialization is valuable, and economists need to debate among themselves and to hone their tools, but whether dealing with New Zealand’s economic diplomacy, the general stance of policy towards bureaucracy and use of the market, the appropriate framework for monetary policy, or any of the other issues with which Frank has been concerned and with which he has engaged the Association, relating academic ideas to practical issues has been high on his agenda. And we have all benefited from his efforts.

[1] F.W. Holmes, “The Education of an Economist” New Zealand Economic Papers I (1966), pp. 3-17.

[2] Frank Tay “Comment” Ibid pp. 18-23.

It is with great pleasure the Association honours Bob Buckle with the award of life membership of the NZ Association of Economists. Starting with a masters degree from Auckland University Bob has worked as an economist all his career. He has been an active member of the Association in various roles. His work as an economist has moved from private researcher through academic life to public policy (with an international dimension) and now again as an academic leader – currently he is Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of Commerce and Administration at Victoria University of Wellington.

He has made valuable research contributions over this sustained career, notably blending micro and macro approaches to the business cycle – an area that has for obvious reasons become fashionable again recently. His publications include modelling business cycles as well as commentary on international structural reform among APEC countries. Bob’s interest in careful, high quality empirical research is widely appreciated.

In making this award we wish to honour Bob for his service to the profession, the New Zealand public service and the Association, in particular. Bob’s contribution to all of these groups has been of the highest quality.

Bob has:

1. Provided numerous acts of high quality service to the Association. He has frequently refereed journal articles of New Zealand Economic Papers, and he has undertaken many functions on behalf of the Association.

2. Organised and facilitated conferences of the Association. In particular he was the convener of the large and successful Sesqui-centential Conference of the Association in Auckland in 1990. And more recently, Bob was a collected and consistently positive Programme Committee co-chair for the 2008 NZAE/ESAM Conference in honour of AW Phillips in Wellington, which produced a glittering array of speakers.

3. Provided service and leadership to the Association by serving as Council Member (1985 to 1993) and President (1989 – 1991).

Bob’s characteristic cool style, allied with quiet effectiveness, have marked all the tasks he has undertaken. He is an ambassador for the New Zealand economics profession and has mentored a generation of students through his teaching and academic leadership. More recently he brought a laid-back but logical approach to international economic relations and again proved highly effective.

His own professional achievements have been marked by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research Economics Award in 2003. He joins a small but select group who have received this prestigious award.

The Association honours Bob for his broad economic citizenship and has pleasure in awarding him life membership of the Association.

March 2009

It is with great pleasure the Association honours Brian Silverstone with the award of Life Membership of the NZ Association of Economists. Brian, a graduate of both the University of Otago and the University of Waikato is an active member of the Association who has taught macroeconomics and engaged in research at Waikato for nearly 40 years. He has made valuable research contributions including publications pertaining to Okun’s law, capacity utilisation and employment. In making this award we wish to honour Brian for his service to the profession and the Association in particular. Brian has made numerous high quality contributions over a long period.

Brian has:

1. Provided numerous acts of high quality service to the Association. He has organised Workshops for the Association such as the 1981 NZAE Workshop on Fiscal Performance in Dunedin, He has refereed numerous journal articles for New Zealand Economic Papers, and he has served as Convener and/or member of judging panels for NZAE Young Economists Essay Competition (1983), NZAE Best Presented Student Conference Paper (1992-95), NZAE Maori Scholarship in Economics (1995) and NZIER/Qantas Prize in Economics 1994-95.

2. Organised and facilitated numerous conferences of the Association. He was convener or co-convener of six NZAE Annual conferences held at Waikato University in 1971, 1974, 1978, 1982, 1986 and 1992 (jointly).

3. Provided service and leadership to the Association by serving as Council Member (1980-83 and 1990-95), Vice President (1991-93) and President, (1994 and 1995).

4. Served as Assistant Editor (1979) and subsequently Editor (1980-83, inclusive) of New Zealand Economic Papers.

Brian has been a model and mentor to many NZ economists and has facilitated the involvement of Association members in a set of important projects. Examples include his joint editorship with Alan Bollard and Ralph Lattimore of A Study of Economic Reform: The Case of New Zealand Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1996, 518pp., and organisation on behalf of the New Zealand Association of Economists the Festschrift in 1972 (with Allan Catt) in honour of Professor A.W.H. Phillips. This included presenting the essays to Professor Phillips on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday, 18 November 1974.

The Association honours Brian for his economic citizenship and has pleasure in awarding him life membership of the Association.

Len Bayliss, then an economist at the Reserve Bank, played an important role in the creation of the New Zealand Association of Economists. Supported strongly by Alan Low, then the Bank’s Economic Adviser, Len promoted this objective at the 1957 annual meeting of the Bank and university economists. His amplified proposal was well supported at the 1958 meeting, and Len became the Secretary of a promotion committee, chaired by Professor Horace Belshaw, The committee prepared a draft constitution which was sent to every known economist in New Zealand. This was further debated at an inaugural meeting at Victoria University College on 4th December 1958 which resolved unanimously to establish the Association.

Shortly after this, Len was seconded for a tour of duty with the Bank of England. In 1961, after a brief secondment to the Treasury, he joined the staff of the newly formed independent ‘watchdog’, the Monetary and Economic Council, for 5 years. He then became the Chief Economist of the Bank of New Zealand until 1982. He was selected to be a member of the Targets Advisory Committee of the National Development Conference in the late 1960s. In 1976, he was seconded for 20 months to the newly-formed Prime Minister’s Advisory Group. After leaving the Bank in1982, Len became an independent consultant. He was a director of the Hugo Group and of Integrated Economic Services. From 1983 onwards, he also became a director of a number of public companies, including the BNZ, Tower and BNZ Finance.

Len’s resignation from the BNZ was a much publicised event as he had developed a high profile as a prolific and respected commentator on policy issues. His early magazine articles in the 1950s were often written under a nom-de-plume. However from 1963/64, when he first appeared on television, he was regularly engaged in public commentary and debate.

Monetary policy has always been Len’s major interest. He was the major author of a Monetary Council report on the NZ financial system in 1966 which severely criticised existing policies and recommended orthodox alternatives. In the next decade, he campaigned vigorously against direct controls. His appointment to the Prime Minister’s Advisory Group, led by Bernard Galvin, in 1975, gave him the opportunity to play a major role in effecting a major liberalisation of the financial system.

From 1978, Len vigorously promoted the case for wider economic liberalisation and was a strong critic of the “Think Big” programme. At a time when public criticism was muted, he made a significant contribution to preparing the ground for public acceptance of the need for reform. He has also been particularly active in public debate on issues of superannuation policy, pressing for public acceptance here of the OECD’s approach to providing for retirement.

International recognition of his contributions was reflected in the award of a Senior Anzac Fellowship by Australia in 1985 and by other study awards from the governments of the USA, Japan and West Germany.

It is with great pleasure that the Association honours Kerrin Vautier with the award of Life Membership of the New Zealand Association of Economists.

Kerrin graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (economics major) from Victoria University of Wellington in 1965. After graduating she went to work at the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER).  While there she became editor of the Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion (QSBO) and also worked on Quarterly Predictions and contract research.  On moving to Auckland in 1975 she continued editing the QSBO, launched her consultancy business and started tutoring at the University of Auckland.

Kerrin’s achievements and contributions are too numerous to mention in detail but she has held a diverse range of appointments across academia, public, commercial and charitable sectors and has published widely.  Her expertise in competition law has seen her as a member of the Commerce Commission, a Lay Member of the High Court under the Commerce Act and leader of the Competition Policy work of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC).  She has been a Director of a number of large corporates including Norwich Union Holdings, Fletcher Challenge Ltd, News & Media (NZ) (formerly Wilson & Horton Holdings) and Fletcher Building and has served as External Monetary Policy Advisor to the Governor of the Reserve Bank, as a member of the Appeal Board of NZ Electricity market, and external advisor to the Partnership Board of Deloitte. She has also served as a Board member of several not-for-profit organizations, including Chair of NZPECC and NZIER.

During this very busy professional life Kerrin has maintained her interest in music (especially opera and sacred choral music) and theatre even though she has not had time to keep up her own playing of the piano and violin.  This is clearly a loss given that through her time at university she was a violinist in the National Youth Orchestra.  She is also a keen sailor and cook.

It was during her time at NZIER that Kerrin became involved with the Association, a relationship she has maintained ever since.  She acted as Business Manager for New Zealand Economic Papers from 1969 – 1976, served on Council from 1973 – 1981, Vice-President 1975-1976 and President for 1977-1978.  She was one of only two women active in the Association through that time and while President played a key role in Auckland hosting the Pacific Trade and Development Conference (PAFTAD).  This conference was hosted primarily under the auspices of the Association and that year had the theme:  Cooperation and Development in the Asia Pacific Region: Relations Between Large and Small Countries.

Kerrin’s contributions to New Zealand business and economics were recognised when she was appointed a Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1993.

Now the Association is pleased to honour Kerrin for her contribution to the Association and to New Zealand economic policy, by awarding her life membership of the Association.

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John Goodlet Pryde, OBE 1925-2011

• Born 1925
• Kings High School, Dunedin,Otago University BA
• Victoria University of Wellington completed MA
• Reserve Bank 1948-1957
• Federated Farmers Economist, 1958-1963
• Chief Executive Federated Farmers 1964-1975
• Lincoln University 1979-89 including-
  Director Kellogg Rural Leadership Programme
  Director Agribusineess and Economics Research Unit
• Economic Advisor to Joint Statutory Producer Boards 1991
• Economic Consultant 1992
• Nuffield Scholarship 1963
• President, NZ Association of Economists 1975-1977
• USA State Department Foreign Travel Grant 1978
• Life Member NZ Association of Economists 2004
• Fellow, NZ Institute of Management

For much of half a century, John Pryde played a significant part in establishing the place of economics in New Zealand public life. He began by working from 1948 to 1957 in the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, as one of the economic research staff. His peers were, like John, an extra-ordinary group who later had distinguished life long careers in economics. Allan Catt writes of this time:

“As a group, we young economists were at odds with the conventional wisdom of the day that monetary policy was inherently ineffective as a macro-economic tool. We felt the problem was the Bank’s efforts being inadequate and John was courageous in expressing that view. It was a stimulating environment made the more on occasions by John’s ability to mimic and satirise those with whom we disagreed.”

At a time when official statistics in economics were not strong, John introduced New Zealand’s first retail trade survey. This was just one of several statistical initiatives taken then. Meanwhile John completed his MA in economics at Victoria University while working at the bank.

In 1957, John joined Federated Farmers, and was their Chief Executive from 1964 to 1975. He played a key part in the hearings of the Court of Arbitration, the National Development Conference and its’ later Targets Advisory Group, as well as in international trade negotiations, and in farming policy generally. When Britain did eventually join the European Community, John played an important role in the negotiations over New Zealand’s continued access to British markets. He was the Chief Executive of Federated Farmers over a period when farming fortunes and those of New Zealand were on the wane. That kept him intensely involved in ensuring that farming was well engaged whenever New Zealand’s future was the subject of discussion, and that New Zealand’s elected farming leaders were equipped for this.

In 1975, John and family moved south when he was appointed a senior fellow at Lincoln College, carrying out specialised research studies on farming issues. In 1978, the Lincoln College Council agreed to his proposal to run a leadership programme for future farm leaders. Lincoln had no money to deliver on this, and serendipitously John quite audaciously obtained the funding for the first five years of the programme from the US Kellogg Foundation. 1979 saw the first of the ten annual leadership programmes that he ran. Each programme had 25 students, producing a total of 250 leaders of farming in New Zealand. Graduates included one Prime Minister (Jenny Shipley) , and at least one cabinet minister. John’s dream and vision shaped the Kellogg Leadership programme, but it also required passion, determination and drive to not only put it in place, but sustain it.

When John retired from Lincoln in 1991, he remained active as Advisor to the Joint Statutory Producer Boards, and continued to pursue his quest for a better understanding of free trade among New Zealand’s leaders, and our key trading partners.

John Pryde was an inaugural member of the New Zealand Association of Economists, and served as President from 1975/1977. He strongly advocated for the promotion of women in the economists profession.

In all his roles, John has been strongly involved in matters of concern to New Zealand’s future. He has made a major contribution to the place of economics and economists in public life, carrying this on long after he formally retired. He was highly regarded and well liked, as described by Allan Catt:

‘John was a wonderful colleague, good company with a great sense of humour. He was the epitome of a compassionate, generous, well-informed and rational human being. As I write this I look back with a sense of personal loss that we didn’t see more of one another once we went our different ways.’