AUT Economics and Finance Department
Permanent link for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10292/10766
The AUT Economics and Finance Department has an established record and an on-going commitment to excellent research, high-quality supervision, and community and professional engagement. Members of the department sit on editorial boards and serve as referees for professional journals. The department has particular research strength in: Micro and macroeconomics, Econometrics, Industrial organisation, International trade and finance, Natural resource and environmental economics, Labour economics, Economic development, Health economics, and Public policy.
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Item CEO's Early-life Experience of Disasters and Corporate Environmental Performance(Wiley, 2025-01-29) Liao, Shushu; Nguyen, Nhut H; Truong, CameronWe investigate the nexus between the early-life disaster experiences of chief executive officers (CEOs) and their firms’ environmental performance metrics. We hypothesize that first-hand experience of the adversities of natural disasters in the formative years of a CEO can catalyze a transformation in their environmental cognizance and perspective. This transformation is postulated to have a beneficial influence on their corporations’ strategic frameworks for environmental risk mitigation. Our results show that entities steered by CEOs exposed to disasters in their early life have fewer incidences of environmental issues. These findings remain consistent even when controlling for other factors or using alternative methods. We suggest that CEOs with early disaster experience have an enhanced perception of risk ramifications, which inculcates a prudential approach to decision making, potentially heightening the environmental risk profile of their enterprises.Item A Policy Evaluation of Non-custodial Sentencing for First-time Offenders: Evidence From New Zealand(Informa UK Limited, 2025-10-09) Mitchell, LivvyThe economic theory of crime posits that crime rates will decrease if the expected costs of crime exceed the expected benefits. The expected costs of crime are positively correlated with the probability of apprehension and the punishment if caught. This paper tests the effect of non-custodial punishments on recidivism by exploiting a large-scale sentencing reform in New Zealand. Regression discontinuity design estimates suggest that, relative to short-term imprisonment, receiving a non-custodial sentence after the 1 October 2007 policy significantly increases first-time offenders’ recidivism rate by 8.7% after one year, 9.5% after two years, and 9.6% after five years. However, these effects largely stem from serious breaches of non-custodial sentence conditions, highlighting that administrative non-compliance, rather than substantive new criminal activity, is the primary driver of the increased recidivism.Item The Relative Impact of Different News on Stock Returns: Evidence From New Zealand(Wiley, 2026-01-19) Ma, R; Marshall, BR; Nguyen, NH; Visaltanachoti, NWe estimate the effects of different news events on New Zealand stock returns. Our results indicate that local news, such as announcements from the New Zealand Central Bank interest rate changes (official cash rate) and company earnings reports, generally has a greater impact than international news. However, U.S. Federal Open Market Committee interest rate announcements also exert an important impact. There are no consistent differences in the impact of news on stocks with different cross-sectional characteristics, such as small and large, value and growth, and low- and high-leverage stocks.Item Economic and Land Use Impacts of Synthetic Dairy Production on a Dairy-intensive Economy: New Technology Moo-ving in(Wiley, 2026-04-25) Winchester, Niven; White, DSynthetic dairy products are promoted as an environmentally sustainable alternative to conventional dairy goods. This paper examines the potential economic, employment and land use impacts of large-scale synthetic dairy production on Aotearoa New Zealand—the world's leading dairy exporter. Using a global, economy-wide model, we simulate a case in which synthetic dairy products are cost-competitive with conventional dairy products. Our results show that, under this scenario, New Zealand's GDP would decline by 0.5%–0.7%, and national welfare would fall by 1.2%–1.5%, with significant employment impacts on dairy-related and other sectors. The reallocation of dairy land to other uses offers limited mitigation, as global shifts in production depress the prices of other agricultural commodities. Moreover, policies aimed at preserving dairy employment are costly. These findings suggest that, if synthetic dairy products are produced at scale, policy should prioritise adaptation strategies—such as retraining and skills development—to support workers and landowners in adjusting to the resulting changes.Item Data Resource Profile: Education and Health Data in New Zealand’s Integrated Data Infrastructure(Swansea University, 2026-04-23) Schober, Thomas; Bowden, Nicholas; D'Souza, Stephanie; Gibb, Sheree; Milne, Barry; Meehan, LisaThis paper provides an overview of education and health data in New Zealand's Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI). The IDI combines population-wide administrative, census, and survey data from government agencies and other organisations, enabling detailed research into the interplay between education and health at the individual level. We describe the structure of the IDI, key data sources in education and health, and provide an overview of access procedures and practical considerations for working with the data.Item Offenders serving community sentences are more likely to keep jobs, earn more – new research(The Conversation, 2026-04-02) Skov, Peer; Højsgaard, Lars; Mitchell, Livvy[From Introduction] When should offenders be sent to prison and when is it better to keep them in the community under close supervision? New Zealand confronted that choice in 2007 when it introduced home detention, community detention and intensive supervision as alternatives to short prison terms. At the time of the reform, New Zealand relied heavily on prison for criminal justice. The prison population stood at 189 per 100,000 people, compared to an OECD average of 136, and prisons were operating above capacity. Two decades later, these non-custodial sentences are now a substantial part of the justice system. In the 2024–25 financial year, the courts convicted and sentenced 50,800 people, but only about 15% received imprisonment. About one in five were sentenced to home detention, community detention or intensive supervision for offences including traffic offending, acts intended to cause injury, theft and burglary. We conducted two studies to examine what followed when sentencing shifted away from short prison terms towards community-based sanctions, focusing on work and reoffending, respectively. We found offenders are more likely to retain work and earn more if they stay in the community, without raising the risk of new substantive reoffending. The budget case for community-based sentences is straightforward. A day in prison costs NZ$552, compared with $116 for home detention. But sentencing policy should not be judged purely on fiscal arithmetic. Keeping offenders in the community may help them hold on to work and family ties, but it also raises concerns about deterrence and public safety. Understanding the trade-offs between short prison terms and community-based sanctions matters in New Zealand because most offenders now remain in the community.Item Enrolment, Attendance, and Education Resourcing and Support Among 5-12 Year Old Autistic Students in Aotearoa New Zealand: A Nationwide Cross-sectional Study(Swansea University, 2026-03-19) Bowden, Nicholas; Anns, Francesca; Clendon, Sally; Dacombe, Joanne; Meehan, Lisa; Vu, Hien; Woodford, Emma; McLay, LaurieINTRODUCTION: Participation in education underpins positive lifelong outcomes, yet Autistic children often encounter barriers to enrolment, attendance, and access to support. Evidence indicates that systemic challenges such as inadequate support, limited autism-specific teacher training, and restricted access to resources contribute to disparities in educational outcomes. While small sample studies highlight these inequities, population-level evidence is limited. OBJECTIVES: To quantify nationwide differences in school enrolment, attendance, and access to educational resourcing and support services between Autistic and non-Autistic children aged 5-12 years in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ), and to examine variation by co-occurring intellectual disability (ID). METHODS: Cross-sectional analysis using NZ's Integrated Data Infrastructure, including all children aged 5-12 in 2019. Autism and ID were identified from hospital, mental health, and disability service use datasets. Outcomes included enrolment, attendance, and access to supports. Propensity score matching (1:10) compared Autistic and non-Autistic students across outcomes, including stratification by ID status. RESULTS: Among 517,872 students aged 5-12 years, 8,169 (1.6%) were Autistic and of those 28.8% had co-occurring ID. Compared to matched peers, Autistic children were less likely to be enrolled in school (94.9% vs. 97.4%; Prevalence ratio [PR]=0.97, 95% confidence interval [CI]=0.97-0.98) but more likely to be enrolled in specialist schools (14.4% vs. 0.2%; PR=70.15, 95% CI=65.73-74.88), Te Kura (2.1% vs. 0.2%; PR=9.65, 95% CI=8.22-11.34), or home-schooling (2.2% vs. 0.9%; PR=2.45, 95% CI=2.11-2.84). Regular attendance was lower (49.3% vs. 61.2; PR=0.80, 95% CI=0.79-0.82), with higher rates of chronic absence (7.7% vs. 3.2%; PR=2.45, 95% CI=2.27-2.64). Access to supports was significantly higher for Autistic students across a range of services. Disparities were often more pronounced among Autistic children with ID. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates significant differences in enrolment, attendance, and access to educational supports between Autistic and non-Autistic students in NZ, underscoring the urgent need for targeted and sufficiently resourced supports to ensure equitable participation.Item Effects of Option Incentive Compensation on Corporate Innovation: The Case of China(Elsevier BV, 2024-03-01) Cheng, R; Frijns, B; Kim, H; Ryu, DThis study examines the effect of option incentives on corporate innovation in a representative emerging and transitioning economy. Using data from China, we show that option incentives have significant positive impacts on two crucial aspects of innovation: inputs and outputs. Innovation efficiency consistently improves after the introduction of option incentives. These positive effects remain when we control for potential endogeneity using difference-in-differences estimation with propensity score matching. Option incentives have more pronounced effects in high-tech firms than in other firms. Our findings suggest that firms’ specific characteristics and needs should be considered when developing incentive policies.Item Category-dependent Preferences and Stochastic Choice(Elsevier BV, 2026-02) Ryan, MatthewWe introduce a generalisation of (Aguiar’s 2017) random categorisation rule (RCR) that relaxes (Aguiar’s 2017) Acyclicity axiom to an Asymmetry condition. Unlike other alternatives to the RCR, such as the models of Brady and Rehbeck (2016) and Cattaneo et al., (2020), our generalised random categorisation rule (GRCR) relaxes the linearity of preference, rather than varying the random consideration process. We show that the GRCR is also equivalent to allowing linear preferences to be category-dependent, with the requirement that the preferences associated with overlapping categories agree on the intersection. This allows the GRCR to capture intransitivities across categories, which may naturally arise when categorisation is used to frame choices. We provide a characterisation for the GRCR and compare it to the random utility model, as well as to the BR model, the RAM, and the model of Manzini and Mariotti (2014).Item Same Crime – Different Outcomes: Do Court Outcomes Differ Systematically by Ethnicity?(New Zealand Policy Research Institute - Te Kāhui Rangahau Mana Taurite, 2025-11-27) Plum, Alexander; Neubert, Rosina; Chua, Serene; Turcu, AlexandraItem Māori Face Harsher Sentences Than NZ Europeans for Similar Drink-driving Offences – With Lasting Consequences(The Conversation, 2025-11-27) Plum, AlexanderItem Sexual Orientation, Crime Victimization, and Relationship to the Offender: Insights From New Zealand Police Records, 2014–2024(Elsevier, 2025) Gilmoure, Anna; Feinstein, Brian; Plum, AlexanderObjectives: To examine sexual orientation differences in crime victimization rates by strangers and known offenders in a nationally representative sample of 2.58 million cisgender New Zealand (N.Z.) residents. Study design: We linked N.Z. Census data and police records from 2014 to 2024 to examine sexual orientation differences in rates of crime victimization (any crime, sexual assault, crime with a weapon, violence, and serious violence) separately for cisgender men and women. We further examined rates of each crime offence by strangers versus known offenders by sexual orientation, stratified by gender. Methods: We used logistic regression stratified by gender, adjusting for demographic covariates. Results: Sexual minority (SM) individuals faced higher victimization risk across categories of crime compared to heterosexual people, with the most consistent heightened risk observed for sexual assault. Bisexual people experienced heightened risk of victimization from both strangers and known offenders, whereas homosexual men generally experienced heightened risk of victimization from known offenders and homosexual women from strangers. Conclusions: There are differences in risk of being offended by strangers and known individuals by sexual orientation, with particularly stark disparities observed for women and bisexual individuals. Policymakers and social service organizations should consider the unique vulnerabilities of subsets of SM individuals when implementing crime prevention strategies.Item Does Financing Biodiversity Reduce Biodiversity Loss? Evidence From EU Funding of Science and Innovation(Oxford University Press (OUP), 2025-11-05) Poyser, AndreRecent calls for greater private capital in biodiversity finance often overlook the question of effectiveness. This article interrogates the assumption that the increased financing being called for directly reduces species-level loss. Using data on European Union-funded projects across twenty-six countries over two decades, I discover that conservation funding has been most effective in supporting forest preservation, but largely ineffective for other ecological-based measures of biodiversity. Applying a dynamic difference-in-differences framework, I show that conservation funding generally yields minimal ecological gains. In contrast, funding for biodiversity research expands biodiversity data coverage, though additional investment produces little marginal improvement. A geospatial analysis of bird sightings reveals delayed and spatially dependent impacts on avian biodiversity near funded projects. Additionally, I explore biotechnology-related biodiversity projects as a channel for private investment. These projects generate patents and genetic resources that can be commercialized, suggesting pathways for aligning biodiversity outcomes with investor incentives.Item Retail Investors, COVID and the Quality of the New Zealand Stock Exchange(SAGE Publications, 2024-04-27) Gilbert, Aaron; Tourani-Rad, AlirezaIn this article, we investigate the impact of the influx of retail investors during the COVID-19 lockdowns on the New Zealand Stock Exchange on the efficiency of the market. On one hand, these investors bring added liquidity to the market, which generally improves market efficiency, and on the other hand, many of these investors were inexperienced retail traders who are often viewed as noise traders harming market efficiency. This natural experiment allows us to investigate the impact of retail investors. Using a sample of 99 New Zealand Exchange listed companies, we collect intraday price and quote data from 1 January 2019 to 24 March 2021. We compute a range of market quality measures across three categories: trading costs, price efficiency and speed of information incorporation. Our results clearly indicate that the influx of retail investors has reduced market quality; in particular, we observe more price predictability and information being impounded into prices more slowly. JEL Classification: C10, G14, G20Item The Long-term Impact of Financial Literacy on Wealth: Evidence From Longitudinal Data(Elsevier BV, 2025-10-20) De Beckker, Kenneth; Frijns, Bart; Hubers, Frank; Derkx, SjuulThis paper investigates the long-term impact of financial literacy on wealth accumulation using unique longitudinal data on Dutch households, thereby resolving important endogeneity issues that plague cross-sectional analyses. We find that financial literacy significantly influences income and savings, driving wealth accumulation over time. The effects vary by age: younger individuals with higher financial literacy tend to earn more, whereas older individuals prioritize savings. Additionally, we identify a notable gender disparity, where financial literacy significantly influences wealth accumulation for men, but has no significant impact for women.Item Want NZ Banking to Be More Competitive? Then Make It Easier to Switch Banks(The Conversation, 2024-08-22) Gilbert, AaronItem KiwiSaver Shakeup: Private Asset Investment Has Risks That Could Outweigh the Rewards(The Conversation, 2025-02-03) Gilbert, AaronItem KiwiSaver at a Crossroads: Budget Another Missed Opportunity to Fix NZ’s Underperforming Retirement Scheme(The Conversation, 2025-05-23) Gilbert, AaronItem Subjective Models of Workers and Managers for Macroeconomic Expectations(American Economic Association, 2025-05-15) Kumar, Saten; Bruschi, Claudia; D'Acunto, Francesco; Weber, MichaelWe propose a measure of subjective models of the macroeconomy for firms and workers. Subjective models are highly heterogeneous across agents, and their distribution is similar within the groups of firm managers and workers. At the same time, the beliefs of managers and workers who hold the same subjective models are different in reaction to monetary shocks. The expected persistence of monetary policy tightening differs across managers based on their subjective models but not across workers. And the expected effect of monetary tightening on short-term inflation differs across workers based on their subjective models but not across managers.Item Social And Health Outcomes Around Divorce: Evidence From New Zealand(NBER, 2025-05-26) Dasgupta, Kabir; Johnston, Andrew; Kirkpatrick, Linda; Massenkoff, Maxim; Plum, AlexanderHow does family breakdown and divorce affect spouses and their children? We provide new evidence using a matched difference-in-differences design in rich administrative data from New Zealand. While most outcomes remain stable prior to separation, parents' mental health deteriorates in the lead-up. At separation, men's employment falls while women's rises, and women become much more likely to receive government benefits. Men temporarily double their criminal offending; about a third of the increase is domestic disputes. Both parents become more likely to be the victim of non-domestic crime as well. As for mental health, parents become more anxious and depressed at separation, and these remain elevated well after the couple has parted. Their children, too, face increased risks after separation: anxiety, depression, school absenteeism, and crime victimization all rise.