Chris McDonald

Biography:
Chris is the Manager of the Forecasting team in the Economics Department. The Forecasting Team supports monetary policy decision making by providing macroeconomic forecasts and analysis of current economic conditions to the Monetary Policy Committee.
Chris has spent much of the past decade modelling and forecasting the New Zealand economy. He has researched the effects of migration and macroprudential policies, looked at the drivers of the New Zealand dollar and developed national house price measures, among other things. Chris spent 6 months in 2014 at the Bank for International Settlements regional office in Hong Kong.
Current research interests:
- Forecasting New Zealand economic conditions
- Drivers and effects of migration
- Macroeconomic modelling
Selected Publications:
- McDonald, C (2017) “Does past inflation predict the future?” Reserve Bank of New Zealand Analytical Note, AN2017/07
- McDonald, C; Thamotheram, C; Vahey, S; Wakerly, E (2016) “Assessing the economic value of probabilistic forecasts in the presence of an inflation target” Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper, June 2016, DP2016/10
- McDonald, C and Armstrong, J (2016) “Why the drivers of migration matter for the labour market” Reserve Bank of New Zealand Analytical Note, April 2016,AN2016/02
- McDonald, C; Kamber, G; Sander N and Theodoridis, K (2015) “A Structural model for policy analysis and forecasting: NZSIM” Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper, November 2015, DP2015/05
- McDonald, C (2015) “When is macroprudential policy effective?” Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper, November 2015, DP2015/06
- McDonald, C (2015) “When is macroprudential policy effective? (2015)”, Bank for International Settlements Working Paper series, Working Papers No 496
- McDonald, C (2013) “Migration and the housing market” Reserve Bank of New Zealand Analytical Note, December 2013, AN2013/10
- McDonald, C and Bloor, C (2013) “Estimating the impacts of restrictions on high LVR lending” Reserve Bank of New Zealand Analytical Note, October 2013, AN2013/05
- McDonald, C (2012) “Kiwi drivers – the New Zealand dollar experience” Reserve Bank of New Zealand Analytical Note, May 2012, AN2012/02
- McDonald, C and Thorsrud, L (2011) “Evaluating density forecasts: model combination strategies versus the RBNZ” Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper, August 2011, DP2011/03
- McDonald, C and Smith, M (2009) “Developing stratified housing price measures for New Zealand” Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper, August 2009, DP2009/07