kirdan.lees

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  • Kirdan Lees
  • Senior Economist and Head of Public Good Research

Contact

  • Email: kirdan [dot] lees [at] nzier [dot] org [dot] nz
  • DDI: +64 4 472 1880
  • Mobile: +64 21 264 7336

Areas of Expertise

Forecasting and modelling | Economic policy and governance | The international economy | Structure of the New Zealand economy

Overview

Kirdan has extensive knowledge and experience of modelling the New Zealand economy. He also cares passionately about helping people interact and understand forecasts and data across a broad range of fields.

Kirdan joined NZIER in September 2011 after managing policy and research teams in the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. His work has been published in many internationally recognised journals and he is equally adept at distilling key insights to policymakers and business groups.

Recent Projects

Labour market forecasting

Recently Kirdan developed a model that integrates a diverse range of data sources for forecasting labour market developments. That model provides very good headline forecast performance and enables a highly detailed approach to understanding key aspects of the labour market outlook.

Structural modelling

Earlier Kirdan lead the team that developed and estimated the Reserve Bank’s DSGE (Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium) model. Typically Kirdan’s work brings together prior beliefs and data to communicate the uncertainty inherent in economics.

Public good management

Currently Kirdan is leading the NZIER public good programme. This programme focuses on the key economic issues of the day and provides issues up for debate that are readily available on the NZIER website.

Education

PhD (University of Melbourne)