Tax Working Group instigator Norman Gemmell wins NZIER economist of the year award, for work on tax, policy debate, relationship between fiscal policy and growth

By Alex Tarrant

Victoria University Chair of Public Finance Norman Gemmell has been awarded the NZIER Economist of the Year award for 2012.

Gemmell was cited for his contributions to international literature on fiscal policy - particularly in relation to taxation and public spending - and growth, his work helping set up the 2009 Tax Working Group, and for setting up the Government Economics Network aimed at providing high quality advice across the public service.

Gemmell joined Victoria University's School of Accounting and Commercial Law in November 2011 as its first Chair of Public Finance, a position funded by Treasury, Inland Revenue, Ministry of Social Development, and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Prior to that he had been appointed inaugural chief economist at Treasury in 2010. Gemmell joined Treasury in 2007 as Principal Advisor, Tax Strategy. 

Gemmell held academic positions at the University of Durham, Australian National University and the University of Nottingham, as well as visiting positions at the Universities of Oxford (2007), Melbourne (1998-2006), Warwick (1995) and West Florida (1999), the Australian National University (1995), the New Zealand Treasury (2003) and the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), Mannheim, Germany (2011).

Gemmell was presented with the award at the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) AGM on Tuesday evening.

See previous NZIER Economist of the Year winners here.

Also see last year's article, NZIER Economist of the Year award not presented in 2011, as nominees don't meet criteria of research leading to lasting NZ economic benefits.

Read Gemmell's citation below:

The NZIER Economic Award’s Operating Guidelines enjoin the Awarding Panel to “look for outstanding contributions to the advancement of economics and its applications in New Zealand”. To qualify for the Award, a contribution “must advance economic matters of direct relevance to New Zealand”, and must be “likely to be of long term lasting importance to New Zealand”.

The recipient of the 2012 Award has made outstanding contributions in three distinct settings: in contributions to the international literature on fiscal policy (particularly in relation to taxation and public spending) and economic growth, in tax policy-making in New Zealand, and in setting up the Government Economics Network.

Before coming to New Zealand, the recipient of this year’s Award established a strong international research reputation in the fields of development economics, growth, and public finance. His empirical work on the impact of human capital and taxes on economic growth, in particular, has helped to make him one of the most widely internationally cited economists in New Zealand, with papers published in such prestigious journals as the American Economic Review, the Economic Journal and the Journal of Public Economics.

In 2007 he joined the New Zealand Treasury as Principal Advisor, Tax Strategy, with a remit to develop the Treasury’s medium-term tax policy advice. During his time at Treasury, and as a supporting official to the Tax Working Group, he used his strong analytical, empirical, and public policy skills to open up discussion on hard policy issues, based on applying multi-dimensional frameworks to policy analysis, producing new evidence on the behavioural and distributional effects of different policy options, and rigorously assessing the trade-offs between policy options.

He combines a remarkable mix of academic rigour and effective real-world policy-making.  He had the vision to first propose the February 2009 Victoria University conference on tax reform, which started the process that led to the creation of the Tax Working Group, which in turn was instrumental in provoking and informing a much-needed public debate on sustainable tax reform. This culminated in the Government’s 2010 tax reform, described by the Minister of Finance as the biggest tax reform in 25 years.

His success in economic policy advice was recognised with his appointment in 2010 as Treasury’s inaugural Chief Economist.  During his time in that role, he set up the Government Economics Network. This was a new initiative for economists in the New Zealand public service, designed to help build the kind of economic capability necessary to support high quality economic policy advice across the public service.

Now in his new role as the Chair in Public Finance at the Victoria University of Wellington, with support from three Government departments and PricewaterhouseCoopers, he is again pursuing his joint interests in economic research and policy advice, this time from within the academic research community.

The 2012 NZIER Economics Award is therefore given to Norman Gemmell.