The Prize is awarded to the honours dissertation (or an eligible master’s dissertation, as noted below) that is judged to be the best from the pool of submissions. The submission pool will be drawn as a maximum of one dissertation from each university, and they will be assessed by a judging panel appointed by the Chair of the NZAE Trust. Eligible sumbissions may be an Honours dissertation or a master’s dissertation (up to a maximum of one year’s full-time study) produced as part of a taught programme. Dissertations may be on any area of economics. A submission from each Head of Department will be sought before 30 November each year.

The prize confers a range of financial and reputational benefits for the winner:

• $500 from the NZAE Education Trust.
• A certificate from the NZAE.
• Free registration to the NZAE conference for the current year (worth $850 to non-members), along with a complimentary conference dinner (worth $100).
• An invitation to present at the NZAE July conference, with acceptance subject to the usual conference committee process. Note that the award winner may also apply for other relevant conference prizes (eg, the Jan Whitwell Bachelors/Masters Prize, the New Zealand Economic Policy Prize, etc.).
• An invitation to submit to the New Zealand Economic Papers, which is the NZAE flagship journal. Acceptance would be subject to the usual editorial and refereeing process for the journal.

NOTE: Payment of any monies will only be in NZ dollars, either by way of an NZ cheque made out to the awardee as the payee or a direct debit to a NZ bank account held in the name of the awardee.

Previous winners

2023 – Daniel Watt
2022 – Shannon Minehan
2021 – Julie Sandilands
2020 – Chanelle Duley
2019 – Katy Krauts
2018 – Chris Purdie
2017 – Nam Phan
2016 – Michael Callaghan