Dr Patrick Carvalho is a Research Fellow at The New Zealand Initiative, with extensive international experience in public policy across academia, public organisations and private sector.
Prior to immigrating to New Zealand, Dr Carvalho worked as the Head of the Economic Studies Division at the Federation of Industries of Rio de Janeiro, producing research on fiscal and monetary matters, and as a Research Fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney, where he focused on industrial relations and competition policy. More recently, Dr Carvalho was a Director at a Washington, D.C.-based consultancy advising the U.S. Federal Administration on the challenges of demographic shifts to economic prosperity.
Dr Carvalho has Bachelor of Law degree from Rio de Janeiro’s State University, a Master’s in political science from the University of Wollongong, and a PhD in economics from the Australian National University, where he also worked as a lecturer in macroeconomic policy.
Latest reports:
Pricing Out Congestion: Experiences from abroad (28 January 2020)
The Price is Right: The road to a better transport system (5 November 2019)
Policy Point: The Pitfalls of CGT (February 2019)
Submission: Local Government Funding and Financing (February 2019)
Phone: 04 494 9101
Email: info@nzinitiative.org.nz
Bipartisan politics is a rare beast in New Zealand nowadays. It is even harder to spot when political parties are shy to sponsor necessary policy changes that might arouse public backlash at first. Read more
As of this week, the American economy has been growing for 121 months, the longest since records began in 1854. On the back of it, the global economy – including New Zealand’s – has been sailing through calm waters. Read more
The government has released its Road to Zero consultation document, laying out a Vision Zero approach aiming for “no one is killed or seriously injured in road crashes”. A zero-road toll pledge may be a good soundbite, but not a good policy prescription. Read more
Can local community growth pay for itself? In other words, can economic growth itself pay for the community’s required infrastructure expansion (e.g. Read more
New Zealand’s productivity track record is failing us. That was the key message delivered by the Productivity Commission’s new report, Productivity by the numbers: 2019. Read more
New Zealand has to slow down. At least, that was the overall message from the NZ Transport Agency’s Mega Maps data released this week. Read more
“With a little ingenuity, it is possible to devise methods of charging for the use of the city streets that are capable of adjusting the charge in close conformity with variations in costs and traffic conditions,” wrote William Vickrey, Nobel Laureate and the father of road pricing theory, in 1963. Little did he know that it would take more than 50 years for the technology to catch up to his vision. Read more
The Government is not considering lowering the speed limits on most major roads, despite new evidence showing around 87 percent of speed limits are too high for the conditions. But is it that simple: reducing the road toll by lowering the speed limits? Read more
Once upon a time, the pursuit of happiness was a personal duty. Not anymore. Read more
Last week, a group of 17 countries along with leading social media platforms signed Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s Christchurch Call “to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online”. The non-binding three-page document is inspiringly pragmatic, combining aspirational actions without falling for heavy-handed (and misguided) regulations. Read more
An all-time low official cash rate of 1.5% as of May 8 means borrowing a New Zealand dollar from the Reserve Bank is a step closer to the zero lower bound – with at least one more rate cut expected in the near future. Despite excitement among mortgage owners and business, this is not good news. Read more
Readers of The New Zealand Herald should welcome its recent introduction of a $5-weekly subscription to access premium content. So should non-readers. Read more
When it comes to funding our roads, the average New Zealand driver is not getting the best deal. For one, we have been paying for our streets and highways roughly the same way for the past 50 years, despite technological advancements and global best practice. Read more
This year’s close alignment of Easter and Anzac public holidays translated into 10 days of joy, family time and… congestion – with the New Zealand Traffic Agency (NZTA) issuing multiple heavy traffic warnings across the nation. Unfortunately, traffic jams are not restricted to holiday seasons in New Zealand. Read more
Saturday morning, reading the news, sipping the first coffee of the day in my sunlit balcony: Life is good and simple. Until I remembered my promise to take my daughter shopping for a new unicorn doll that morning. Read more