Sally M Auld

Sally Auld is chief investment officer at JBWere. Sally completed her Bachelor and Master degree in economics at Sydney University with First Class Honours and the University Medal. Sally went on to complete a Doctor of Philosophy in economics at Oxford University. She is currently Deputy Chair of the Council of The Women’s College, within the University of Sydney, and sits on the Board of Equality Australia. Auld joined J.P. Morgan in September 2008 as head of fixed income and FX strategy for Australia and New Zealand. She was responsible for views on the Antipodean economic and policy outlook as well as strategic and tactical trade recommendations in Antipodean interest rate and FX markets. Previously, Auld was co-head of economics and interest rate research at ANZ and commenced her career as an interest rate strategist at Credit Suisse.

Besa Deda

Besa is the Chief Economist of Westpac’s Business Bank. She is also the Chief Economist of St.George Bank, Bank of Melbourne, BankSA and BT, which are other businesses within the Westpac Group. Besa has been with the Group as a Chief Economist since 2009 and is a key spokesperson on the economy and financial markets. She manages a team of economists, regularly presents to clients and appears in the media. Besa is also the Chair of the Australian Business Economists, an organisation committed to fostering economic debate on economic issues and policy matters. Besa was appointed the Chief Economist of St.George Bank in 2008, a role which saw her become the first female Chief Economist of a bank in Australia. Prior to this, she had specialised roles in fixed income, currency strategy, macroeconomics and equities at the Commonwealth Bank. Besa has also worked for the Colonial Group in market risk and economics. She has previously lectured for the Kaplan Business School and written a regular property column for the Weekend Australian. Besa holds an economics degree with honours from the University of Sydney and a master’s degree in applied finance from Macquarie University.

Begoña Domínguez

Begoña Domínguez is a Professor of Economics at the University of Queensland. She is founding member and current President of the Australasian Macroeconomics Society. She is a Research Associate of CAMA. She has held Associate Editorial positions at the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control and at New Zealand Economic Papers. Her research specialisation is in macroeconomics and in particular she works on both fiscal policy and monetary economics. Begoña has published in international economics journals such as the Journal of Monetary Economics, the Journal of Economic Theory, and the Review of Economic Dynamics.

Timo Henckel

Timo Henckel (non-voting chair) is a Senior Lecturer in the Research School of Economics at ANU College of Business and Economics. He is also a CAMA Research Fellow and director of CAMA’s “Behavioural Macroeconomics and Complexity” research program. His research spans the fields of behavioural economics, monetary economics, international macroeconomics, and experimental economics, with a particular focus on financial crises, bubbles and central bank policy. He appears frequently in the media and has written numerous policy briefs. Dr Henckel holds a PhD from the London School of Economics.

Mariano Kulish

Mariano Kulish received his PhD in economics from Boston College in 2005. His research interests include macroeconomics, monetary economics and applied econometrics with a focus on understanding the behaviour of economies undergoing structural changes. Mariano has developed new techniques to solve and estimate rational expectations models with structural changes and has applied them to policy-relevant settings, such as the recent period of monetary policy with zero interest rates, disinflation policies, and the impact of commodity price fluctuations in Australia. Mariano has published in international economics journals such as the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Monetary Economics, the Journal of International Economics, the Journal of Applied Econometrics, the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, and the European Economic Review.

Guay Lim

Guay Lim is a Professorial Research Fellow at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economics and Social Research and an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Economics, University of Melbourne. Her research interests are in quantitative macroeconomics and macroeconometrics and her papers have been published in major international journals. She has held visiting research positions at the IMF, ECB, RBNZ, Osaka University, Brown University, Georgetown University and Fordham University. Guay is also the head of the Macroeconomics Unit at the Melbourne Institute and they publish indicators of activity about the Australian economy on a regular basis.

Warwick McKibbin

Warwick McKibbin is a Distinguished Professor in the ANU Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis (CAMA) at the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University (ANU). He is also a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences, a Distinguished Fellow of the Asia and Pacific Policy Society, a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C and a Director of McKibbin Software Group Pty Ltd. Professor McKibbin was founding Director of the ANU Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis and founding Director of the ANU Research School of Economics. He was also a Professorial Fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy for a decade from 2003, where he was involved in its design and development. Professor McKibbin served for a decade on the Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia (the Australian equivalent of the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve) until July 2011. He has also served as a member of the Australian Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council and the Australian Prime Minister’s Taskforce on Uranium Mining Processing and Nuclear Energy in Australia.

James Morley

James Morley is a Professor of Macroeconomics at the University of Sydney. He received his PhD from the University of Washington in 1999 and was previously at Washington University in St. Louis and the University of New South Wales, most recently as Associate Dean (Research) of the UNSW Business School from 2014-2017. He is an Academic Fellow of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and has been a visiting scholar at various policy institutions worldwide, including the Bank of Canada, Bank Negara Malaysia, and the Bank for International Settlements. He is a former President of the Society for Nonlinear Dynamics and Econometrics and is currently Co-Editor of the Economic Society of Australia’s journal The Economic Record. His research focuses on the empirical analysis of business cycles, stabilisation policy, and sources of persistent changes in macroeconomic and financial conditions.

John Romalis

John Romalis studies international economics and macroeconomics. Romalis has published well-known papers on the determinants of international trade, and on the economic effects of tax and trade policy in journals such as the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Review of Economics and Statistics, and the Journal of the European Economic Association. Romalis has three main current lines of research. He studies the trade and welfare implications of tariff reductions since the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations. A second line of research studies the causes of the collapse of international trade during the recent global recession. Finally, Romalis studies how firms engaged in international competition determine the quality and price of their products.
After completing degrees in economics and in law, Romalis worked negotiating contracts governing swaps and other derivatives for a commercial bank, and then moved to the economics research department in Australia’s central bank. After completing his PhD in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he joined the University of Chicago Booth faculty in 2001. John Romalis has also served as a Resident Scholar for the International Monetary Fund, has been a Faculty Research Fellow for the National Bureau of Economic Research, and had appointments at Princeton University and Australian National University. In 2013 John Romalis moved to The University of Sydney where he was appointed the Sir Hermann Black Chair of Economics.

Peter Tulip

Peter Tulip is Chief Economist at the Centre for Independent Studies. He previously worked in the Research Department of the Reserve Bank of Australia. Before that he worked at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the OECD and the Commonwealth Treasury. His recent research focusses on housing and monetary policy. Peter has published in international economics journals such as the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, the International Journal of Forecasting, the International Journal of Central Banking and the B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics. He has a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.

Past members

Paul Bloxham

August 2011-December 2020

Paul Bloxham is Chief Economist for HSBC in Australia and New Zealand. Prior to joining HSBC, Paul Bloxham was an economist within the Reserve Bank of Australia’s Economic Analysis Department where he headed up the overseas economies and financial conditions sections, as well as working on domestic forecasting and prices. Bloxham has published a number of papers, including on household finances, asset prices and monetary policy. He is also a regular commentator on local and international business television and a frequent contributor of opinion editorials to the Australian newspapers. He holds a Masters degree in public financial policy from the London School of Economics.

Mark Crosby

August 2011-December 2019

Mark Crosby is Dean of the Global Master of Business Administration (GMBA) and interim Dean of the Global Bachelors of Business Administration (GBBA) effective October 17, 2011. Dr. Crosby has held academic appointments at the University of Toronto, the University of New South Wales, and the University of Melbourne, where he was most recently the Associate Dean (International) at the Melbourne Business School. Dr. Crosby has co-authored a widely-used textbook on macroeconomics, and publishes regularly in academic journals, contributes articles to the media, and has written a number of book chapters. Besides his university activities, Dr. Crosby has worked or consulted widely for government and private enterprises including the World Bank, the Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the South African Treasury, the Center for Strategic and Policy Studies in Brunei, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, and BHP Billiton. Most recently he completed a project on South Africa’s current account deficit, and a project on diversifying Brunei’s economy. He is a frequent guest on ABC TV and writes regularly for Australian newspapers.

Mardi Dungey

August 2011-December 2018

Mardi Dungey was Professor of Economics and Finance at the University of Tasmania, a Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Financial Analysis and Policy at the University of Cambridge and Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Policy at the Australian National University. Mardi moved to the University of Tasmania in October 2008, from a position as the Deputy Director of the Centre for Financial Analysis and Policy at the University of Cambridge. Prior to that she held academic positions at the Australian National University and La Trobe University. She also worked at Econtech Consulting Group and the Reserve Bank of Australia, and held visiting positions at the IMF, University of Cambridge, Princeton University, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and Australian and New Zealand Treasuries. She spoke regularly to international forums on her research and held a number of competitive grants. Mardi was a co-editor of the Economic Record and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Applied Econometrics, the Journal of Asian Economics, and the Journal of Banking and Finance.

Saul Eslake

August 2011-June 2014

Saul Eslake has been Chief Economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch Australia since December 2011. He was previously a Program Director with the Grattan Institute (a non-aligned think tank affiliated with Melbourne University) and, between 1995 and 2009, Chief Economist at ANZ Bank. He is also a non-executive director of Hydro Tasmania, and a member of the National Housing Supply Council and the Australian Statistics Advisory Council.

Renée Fry-McKibbin

August 2011-August 2022

Renée Fry-McKibbin is a Professor of Economics in the Crawford School of Public Policy. She is the Co-Director of the Finance and Macroeconomy Program and the Commodities and the Macroeconomy within CAMA, and a research associate of the Research Project in Forecasting at George Washington University, the National Centre for Econometric Research (NCER) and the Norwegian Centre for Macroeconomic and Petroleum Analysis (CAMP). Renée was Associate Dean Research of the College of Asia & the Pacific at ANU from 2014 to May 2018. In 2012 she was appointed to the advisory board of the Australian Defence College (ADC). She is an associate editor for the Journal of Banking and Finance and Finance Research Letters, as well as a co-editor of the Economic Record. She has been a visiting scholar or consultant to the European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, the International Monetary Fund, the Bank of England, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Federal Treasury, AUSAID, the New Zealand Treasury and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand.

Bob Gregory

August 2011-May 2018

Professor Gregory has held positions at the University of Melbourne, London School of Economics, Australian National University, Industries Assistance Commission, Northwestern University, and visiting positions at Harvard University, the University of Chicago and University College London.

He has been closely involved in the analysis and development of Australian economic policy; a member of the Board of Management at the Australian Institute of Family Studies, principal consultant in a series of government Aged Care Reviews, member of the committee that recommended the introduction of student income contingent loans, member of the Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Australian Sciences and Technology Council. Professor Gregory has been awarded the Order of Australia Medal and has an honorary doctorate from the University of Melbourne.

Sarah Hunter

February 2021 - February 2023

Sarah Hunter recently joined KPMG as a Senior Economist and Partner in the Economics and Tax Centre. She takes a leading role in defining the firm’s economics research agenda, and works directly with clients to navigate the challenges and opportunities generated by the economic environment. Sarah regularly presents the Australia and global outlook to clients in the region, and is a commentator in the national press. Prior to joining KPMG Sarah was Chief Economist at BIS Oxford Economics, where she led the teams responsible for analsying and forecasting the outlook for Australia and Asia. She has a degree in economics from the University of Cambridge and an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics, which she passed with distinction. Prior to joining Oxford Economics she completed her PhD in Economics at the University of Oxford, where her thesis modelled the impact of World War I on Britain’s position in the global economy.

Jeffrey Sheen

August 2011-January 2022

Jeffrey Sheen is a Professor of Economics at Macquarie University. He has been on the faculty of the Universities of Manchester, Essex and Sydney, and has had a visiting appointment at the Reserve Bank of Australia. He has published his research in major international journals, and his interests span international economics, macroeconomics, labour and international finance. He obtained his PhD at the London School of Economics.

Mark Thirlwell

August 2011-September 2013

Mark Thirlwell is Director of International Economy Program and Fellow of G20 Studies Centre. Mark has been tracking global economic trends since he joined the Bank of England’s International Divisions in 1990 where he worked as part of the Whitehall Economists Subgroup, coordinating the forecasting of major emerging markets across the Bank, Treasury, the FCO and other stakeholders. Mark subsequently joined J P Morgan as a Vice President in Economic Research with responsibility for Central Europe. Before joining Lowy, he served as Senior Economist at Australia’s Export Finance and Insurance Corporation, working on sovereign risk with a particular focus on East Asia.

Shaun Vahey

August 2011-May 2013

Shaun Vahey is Professor at Warwick University and a Research Associate at CAMA (ANU) in the Model Uncertainty and Macro-Econometrics program. His current research interests include: empirical macro, time series econometrics with macro and financial variables, and some data science. He is a regular co-organizer of the Real-time Economics Conference which runs annually (usually) at FRB Philadelphia and other central banks since 2001. Shaun’s previous employers include Cambridge University (Christ’s College), Melbourne University, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Norges Bank and the Bank of England. His research has been published in academic journals including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, the Journal of Applied Econometrics and the Economic Journal. Shaun has previously acted as a consultant with The Money Cloud, The Coefficiency Lab, the ACCC, Citadel Group, Rio Tinto, Norges Bank and RBNZ.

Shaun Vahey was a voting member from August-December 2011 and the inaugural chair until May 2013.