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
This report looks at how good a job government is doing with all the tasks entrusted to it. The issue is important because government has come to command much of our resources. Read more
Bryce Wilkinson finds in his new report Fit for Purpose? Are Kiwis getting the government they pay for? Read more
Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson discusses on TVNZ Breakfast our new report Fit for Purpose? Are Kiwis getting the government they pay for? Read more
Read The New Zealand Initiative's submission to the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Monetary Policy) Amendment Bill. Read more
New Zealanders have come to rely a great deal on government. The proportion of national income taken by taxes more than quadrupled in the 20th century and the number of Parliamentary Acts increased 50-fold. Read more
My Insights article, Low Tax Fantasy, on 27 July rebutted the claims that New Zealand was a low-tax country by global standards and that tax is love. The article struck a chord with a number of readers, one of whom said it reminded her of one of Shakespeare’s sonnets about love. Read more
Two contradictory views about tax are common in New Zealand. One is outrage about tax avoidance; the other is denial that tax rates matter. Read more
This Sunday Bridget Williams Books is holding a panel discussion on the infantile proposition that tax is love. Really? Read more
Late last month Housing New Zealand was widely condemned for being overzealous about amphetamine contamination. A report by the chief scientist had concluded that tenants were being evicted and state houses de-contaminated when there was no clear scientific evidence of a threat to human health. Read more
Last week a long-standing geologist friend chewed my ear about the government’s irresponsible ban on new offshore oil and gas exploration. I call it irresponsible because on the evidence no meaningful consideration was given to the interests of New Zealanders. Read more
Have you noticed how often the disembodied “we” word is used to justify policy action in government today? A stray document that reached our inbox this week may explain why. Read more
The government plans to build 100,000 ‘affordable’ houses in the next 10 years. How much greater is the housing stock likely to be in 10, 15 or 20 years as a result? Read more
Government was vastly smaller in 1908 than now. The tax-and spend state was vastly smaller, but so was the regulatory state. Read more
The Coalition government’s first budget is just over two weeks away. Its core is always fiscal policy – how much it is planning to spend and how it is planning to fund that spending. Read more
Could changes in 1989 to New Zealand’s tax treatment of retirement savings plausibly explain a significant portion of the subsequent sharp rise in New Zealand house prices? Andrew Coleman made the case that it could to a LEANZ audience in Wellington this week. Read more