Keynote Speakers
Professor Charles D. Kolstad
Senior Fellow Emeritus at Stanford University and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of California in Santa Barbara
Wednesday 3rd July | 9:00am -10:30am
Why Economics is Fundamental to Understanding and Solving the Climate Change Problem
BIO:
Prof. Charles D. Kolstad, is an energy and environmental economist with a focus on energy markets, regulation, and climate change (mitigation, adaptation and impacts). (Note: Environmental Economics is the branch of economics concerned with the intersection between economic activity and the environment, broadly defined.) He has published extensively in environmental and resources economics over the past four decades, including work in understanding uncertainty, randomness and learning in climate decisions and regulation, estimating damage from climate change, coal and electricity markets, international trade and pollution havens, and tax competition. He has also authored a leading advanced economics textbook (Environmental Economics), in use worldwide and translated into Spanish, Japanese and Chinese.
Prof. Kolstad has been a Lead Author and a Convening Lead Author for the IPCC (co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize), is a founding editor of the journal Review of Environmental Economics & Policy and has served on many advisory boards. He is a former president of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE).
Prof. Kolstad joined the faculty of Stanford in 2012, following a career at the University of California in Santa Barbara, and the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. At Stanford, he has been affiliated with the Department of Economics, the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) and the Doerr School of Sustainability (Precourt and Woods Institutes).
Prof. Kolstad is currently Senior Fellow Emeritus at Stanford University and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of California in Santa Barbara. He continues to write, speak, teach and conduct research.
ABSTRACT:
Climate Change is perhaps the most significant environmental problem facing the world today. For some countries, the big issue is how to reduce emissions; for other countries, the big issue is how to adapt, prepare and survive in a dramatically changed climate; for most countries, it is a bit of both. New Zealand is no exception, despite it being an exceptional country.
Much of the debate over climate change action has been dominated by physical scientists, biologists and engineers. And it is true that we have learned much from these natural scientists. But now, well into the twenty-first century, the big questions are primarily economic, political and ethical. We know that continuing to emit greenhouse gases globally is like continuing to pile blankets on a bed – we will get warmer.
In this presentation I will argue that the big questions facing the world, preventing us from solving the climate change problem, are fundamentally people-oriented. To demonstrate this, I will consider a number of important economic research questions, the answers to which can be pivotal in solving this giant of all environmental problems.
Professor David Vines
Emeritus Professor of Economics, and Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College,
at Oxford University
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Thursday 4th July | 9:00am -10:30am
The Coordination of Macroeconomic Policies: How to Avoid Separate Silos
David Vines is Emeritus Professor of Economics, and Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College, at Oxford University. He is also the Director of the Ethics and Economics Programme at the Institute for New Economic Thinking in the Oxford Martin School and a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London.
Professor Stefanie Schurer
Professor of Economics at the University of Sydney
Thursday 4th July | 4:00pm - 5:30pm
Professor Stefanie Schurer is an international expert on the lifecycle dynamics & inequality of human development, and linking sensitive administrative data for policy evaluation. She is interested in the effectiveness of paternalistic public policies, policies which override personal choice to avoid the negative externalities of alleged problem behaviours.
Dr Graham Scott
Director Sapere Research Group
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Friday 5th July | 9:00am -10:30am
The Economics of Social Investment, Why it Matters, and Why Economists should Step-up their Contribution
Graham Scott has an MCom from Canterbury University and a PHD in economics from Duke university. He has had a long career in public policy, finance and management in both public and private sectors in New Zealand. He has also advised government agencies in fifty countries on fiscal policy, public management and economic development. He was economic adviser in the Prime Minister’s Dept in the Muldoon Government and Secretary to the Treasury from 1986-1993 under the Lange and Bolger governments. After leaving the public service, he had numerous state sector roles included chairing the Central Regional Health Authority and the national Health Funding Authority in the 1990s. He has also chaired numerous government-appointed advisory committees, including a review of policy advice from the ministries, the Integrated Performance and Incentive Framework for the public health system in 2014, the Governance of Social Investment in 2016 and the review of regulations in the electricity and gas industries. He chaired the task force to review the Government’s Regulatory Responsibility Bill in 2009. He was a commissioner on the Productivity Commission where he contributed to reports on housing, social policies, improving the performance of systems of government regulations and other matters. His publications cover a range of topics in economics and public sector management. He has had various directorships in the private sector, including the company that created the wholesale electricity market and he has had a long career in the consulting industry.
