Announcements from the Department of Economics at Otago
NZAE Life Member – Professor Stephen Knowles
It is with great pleasure we announce that Professor Stephen Knowles has been awarded Life Membership of the New Zealand Association of Economists (NZAE). This award comes as a recognition of Stephen's outstanding and long-standing contribution to the economics profession in New Zealand (e.g. as President of the NZAE, conference organiser) and here at Otago (e.g. HoD, PhD Director). Congratulations to Stephen for winning this prestigious award and for his dedication to our profession.
1000minds scholarships for 2021
Two $2000 USD scholarships are being offered each year to post-graduate students, e.g. Masters or PhD, worldwide.
- One scholarship is for a research project where decision-making is central to the research. The research may use multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) tools, but it's not a requirement.
- A second scholarship is for a research project about or involving the use of conjoint analysis, choice modelling or a discrete choice experiment (DCE).
Scholarship winners will also receive free access to 1000minds software if they wish to use it as part of their research. View examples of research projects using 1000minds.
Scholarship applications open each year on 15 August and 2 October respectively and are open to postgraduate students enrolled at any university worldwide.
To learn more, including about the application process and key dates, please visit www.1000minds.com/sectors/academic/scholarships
1000minds partners with German consulting firm
Software company 1000minds co-founded by the Economics Department's Paul Hansen, has partnered with German consulting firm CHOICEMINER to supply and support 1000minds decision-making software in Germany and also to provide German-speaking support for Europe.
CHOICEMINER is a decision management consultancy based in Munich, Germany's third largest city. Munich is a manufacturing and financial powerhouse, with many large German firms headquartered there, including BMW and Siemens. Foreign companies such as McDonald's and Microsoft also have their German or European HQs in Munich.
“We're really excited by this opportunity to introduce 1000minds to Germany 'in-person' rather than only over the internet”, says Prof Hansen. “Germany is the fourth largest economy in the world.”
Reserve Bank scholarships for 2021
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand offers four types of scholarships for students studying at a New Zealand University. Our scholarships to students majoring in Economics, Finance, Mathematics, Law and Accounting studies, who attained at least a B+ grade point average and who intend to continue studying to Honours or Master's level.
They are:
- Māori and Pacific Islands Scholarship (3 Year Scholarship)
- Women in Central Banking Scholarship (3 Year Scholarship)
- The Roger Perry Memorial Scholarship (final year Honours or Master's)
- Reserve Bank of New Zealand scholarship (3 Year Scholarship)
Applications closed Monday 22 February, more information can be found on the tReserve Bank website
Virtual workshop during COVID-19 Lockdown
The Department of Economics hosted the 1st Virtual Workshop on Applied Microeconomics on Thursday, April 16.
Close to 30 participants attended the workshop, which started with a keynote speech by Professor Gail Pacheco (AUT and NZWRI). The keynote was followed by eight presentations by scholars from around the country, presenting recent work on a variety of questions.
The success of this Workshop proves that research and the exchange of ideas continues even in unusual circumstances such as the current lockdown.
The programme of the Workshop can be accessed here:
1st Virtual Workshop on Applied Microeconomics
An online tool for valuing health
Researchers from Economics, the Department of Preventive & Social Medicine and 1000minds software created an online tool for valuing people's health-related quality of life (HRQoL) – specifically, for creating personal and social EQ-5D-5L value sets.
EQ-5D-5L value sets are used to calculate 'Quality-Adjusted Life Years' for use in economic evaluations – e.g. by PHARMAC – where the costs and benefits of various amounts of spending on pharmaceuticals and medical devices, etc. are compared. Another use of HRQoL information is for calculating 'Patient-Reported Outcome Measures' (PROMs) for the purpose of evaluating the effectiveness of treatments for individual patients.
Information about the tool and its use in New Zealand is available online (open access):
T Sullivan, P Hansen, F Ombler, S Derrett & N Devlin (2020), “A new tool for creating personal and social EQ-5D-5L value sets, including valuing 'dead'”Social Science & Medicine 246, 112707.
Experience this tool yourself by completing the survey
Andrew Coleman's Blog
The Department's Andrew Coleman has been writing a very interesting blog for TVHE – The Visible Hand in Economics. His first three posts are:
*Why devotees of Greta need to give her up to save the planet
*Cook, Elcano, and circumnavigation
*Taxing capital incomes – are we doing it the right way?
Keep an eye open for more from Andrew, available at www.tvhe.co.nz/author/andrew-coleman.
Are Kiwis effective altruists
The effective altruism movement argues that people wanting to do the most good they can from charitable donations should donate to charities fighting poverty in poor countries overseas. For example, the Fred Hollows Foundation can restore someone's sight in the Pacific Islands for only $25, whereas $25 won't go far improving people's health in wealthy countries like New Zealand. However, most New Zealanders prefer to donate to charities helping people in need in their own country. A research project involving Stephen Knowles and Murat Genç (Economics) and Trudy Sullivan (Preventive and Social Medicine) has analysed the reasons why it is that most New Zealanders prefer to donate to charities helping people in need in New Zealand. They found that most people care more about where a donation is spent, than how effective that donation will be. They also found that most people are not aware that money spent on health care will achieve more in a poor country than in New Zealand. This research has featured in an article in The Spinoff.
1000minds helps WHO prioritise deadliest diseases
The World Health Organization (WHO) used 1000minds decision-making software – co-invented by Paul Hansen of the Department of Economics – to create a prioritised list of 12 bacteria posing the greatest threats to human health because they are resistant to antibiotics. Millions of people could die if new and effective antibiotics are not developed. Released in 2017, the Priority Pathogens List is to help prioritise R&D into new antibiotics. 1000minds was used to survey and aggregate the preferences of experts in infectious diseases from around the world. To see the prioritised list of diseases and for more information about the WHO project, click here.
Latest Discussion Paper
Read the latest Discussion Papers for the Department of Economics.