Three Urban Economic Short Courses coming soon

Feb 23, 2024

Motu Research is excited to announce that Senior Fellow Stuart Donovan is coordinating three-day urban economics short courses in Wellington (25-27 June), Auckland (7-9 October), and Christchurch (10-11 October).

These fun and intensive courses are designed for people with a variety of academic and professional backgrounds; no formal economic training is required. 

The courses will introduce participants to key urban economic concepts, relevant research, and implications for policy. In Auckland and Wellington, the courses will run for three days and cover: 

• Day 1: The monocentric city model, agglomeration economies, and transport economics 
• Day 2: The Rosen-Roback Model, heterogeneity and sorting, and infrastructure policy  
• Day 3: Housing markets, models, and place-based economic policy 

Stuart will lead the first two days of these courses, drawing on his experience working as both a researcher and a consultant in New Zealand, Australia, and the Netherlands. Stuart has run similar urban economics courses in many cities over the past five years. The third day of the course will be delivered with recognised local experts, namely Dr Kirdan Lees from Sense Partners in Wellington and Dr Shane Martin from MRCagney in Auckland.

In Christchurch, Stuart will deliver a condensed 1.5-day version of the short course that covers similar content albeit in less detail.

“Even though New Zealand is already a highly urbanised country, the share of people that live and work in our cities and towns is projected to continue to grow,” says Stuart. “Trends like this, which are common globally, motivated me to develop and deliver this urban economics short course, where we can discuss some of the forces that have helped shape our cities and towns before now and how these forces might change in the future.” 

For further information, please refer to the flyers for Wellington, Auckland, and Christchurch, which contain links to the appropriate registration pages that provide further information on pricing.