Livvy Mitchell

Livvy was a Research Analyst at Motu for two years, starting in January 2020, and has since completed her PhD in Economics at AUT. The title of her thesis is “The Ripple Effect of Youth Adversity: Economic and Health Impacts on Families”, where she uses applied econometric techniques to show the causal effects of youth suicide and youth victimisation on the health and economic outcomes of affected family members in Aotearoa. Livvy continues to be based at Motu as a Research Affiliate and provides mentoring support to the Motu RAs.

In 2017, she won the Sir Frank Holmes Prize for the best economics undergraduate in Aotearoa New Zealand. In 2021, she won the 2021 Motu Doctoral Scholarship, awarded to Motu Research Analysts who leave Motu to do a highly rated PhD course.

At Motu, Livvy worked on and led a range of research projects across different topics. 

• She worked with Dr Lynn Riggs on two projects commissioned by the Climate Change Commission, using the IDI and LBD to model and characterise the distributional impacts of climate change mitigation policies. Lynn and Livvy also worked with the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment to explore differences in the characteristics of workers and firms across industries with varying emissions intensities.
• Livvy then led a project with the HRMI team, commissioned by the New Zealand Human Rights Commission, where they developed a framework to empirically evaluate the New Zealand Government’s performance on the right to adequate housing and the right to health care and protection.
• Finally, Livvy led an MSD-funded project, alongside Dr Izi Sin, exploring the prevalence of gendered parenting and the intergenerational transmission of gender stereotypes in Aotearoa.