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.
Bryce was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2025 New Year's honours for his significant contributions to public policy formation and economic research, spanning his influential work at Treasury during New Zealand's major economic reforms and his extensive research on fiscal discipline and regulatory quality.
Phone: +64 4 499 0790
New Zealand’s economic and social decline is slowly receiving greater recognition amongst journalists and commentators. The litany of woes is daunting. Read more
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
Read our submission, written by Dr Bryce Wilkinson to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. This submission responds to the Bank’s 1 June 2022 consultation paper, Supporting New Zealand’s economic stability. Read more
We in the Beehive are aware of some unfounded dissatisfaction amongst the great unwashed. There are stories of a health system in crisis. Read more
When Ministers appear before a Parliamentary Select Committee we do not expect them to make false assertions about factual matters. That is why we were shocked by what the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety told the Employment and Workforce Select Committee last month. Read more
When expectations are low it is easy to be pleasantly surprised. Back in the 1980s, a school teacher once told me of a spontaneous surge of gratitude he had experienced towards a wayward pupil that morning. Read more
Last month, the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety, Michael Wood, appeared before Parliament’s Education and Workforce Committee in support of the Government’s Fair Pay Agreement Bill. He was asked for his response to the New Zealand Initiative’s case that the wage rates were not showing a ‘race to the bottom,’ a decline in either employees’ share of income, or labour productivity growth since the Employment Contracts Act in 1991. Read more
Paul Bloxham, HSBC’s chief economist, once described New Zealand as a “rockstar economy”. That was back in January 2014. Read more
On Monday this week, the prime minister said she was optimistic that the economy would not shrink further in the second quarter. That would avoid New Zealand officially being in recession. Read more
Bryce Wilkinson talks to Tim Dower, Newstalk ZB Early Edition about the 0.2 per cent shrink in New Zealand's economy in the first quarter of the year. Read more
On 4 June, The Dominion Post published a lengthy and disturbing article highlighting the woes and dilemmas of earthquake safety regulation in Wellington. It highlighted the arbitrariness of current building standards and decisions. Read more
Oliver Hartwich discusses the biggest economic issues of the week with Eric Crampton and Bryce Wilkinson: How transitory is inflation? Will we ever see the return of supply-side economics? Read more
A race-neutral approach to government health (and welfare) spending would give the same treatment to people in the same circumstances. It would ignore irrelevant matters such as race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or creed. Read more
Oliver Hartwich talks to senior fellow Dr Bryce Wilkinson about the state of the global economy and fears of a major recession. To listen to our latest podcasts, please subscribe to The New Zealand Initiative podcast on iTunes, Spotify or The Podcast App. Read more
We explained in our November research report "Walking the Path to the Next Global Financial Crisis" why concerns about prolonged economic stagnation, or even serious recessions, should be taken seriously. During the 2008-2010 global financial crisis, governments' responses had turned a banking crisis into a public debt crisis. Read more