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Nicki Hutley is a highly experienced economist, with broad-based expertise in both macroeconomics and microeconomic policy gained over more than three decades in financial and investment markets and in economic consulting.  She is particularly interested in the intersection of economy, society and environment.

Welcome Address

Percy Allan lives in Sydney and advises on public policy, finance and management. He has helped national and local governments in China, India, Thailand, Mongolia, Philippines, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, and the Pacific Islands to reform their financial management. He has also conducted major official inquiries in Australia into local government, builders warranty insurance, the finances of the Northern Territory, coal exploration licensing and Boxing Day trading legislation. He has reviewed and advised over 30 local councils on their financial and infrastructure sustainability.

CBA Chair, Session Chair and Stream A Breakout Chair

Robert Smith is a  council member/ former vice president of the ESA NSW branch.  Currently the Principal Economist at East Economics, he has a background in management consulting, banking and finance, infrastructure, transport  and energy. He is passionate about using economics to find creative, efficient, and practical solutions that can be explained with clear and compelling narratives. This includes using applied economics analysis to support informed decision through pragmatic and robust cost benefit analysis.  

Developments in Evaluation and the National Assessment Framework

Coralie Williams is the Director of the Project Advisory and Evaluation team at Infrastructure Australia – a team that works with all levels of government, the private sector and industry to promote the development of robust, evidence-based infrastructure proposals that address nationally significant problems and opportunities across the country.

Updating the NSW CBA and evaluation guidance, Panel Discussions: Society for Benefit Cost Analysis Conference and PD and building a strong CBA culture and community

Ophelia Cowell directs the Centre for Evidence and Evaluation at NSW Treasury which provides economic analysis and advice to the NSW Government to put evidence based policy into practice. By working with agencies to improve the evidence base, the Centre helps inform Government decisions so that public funds can be directed to the initiatives and social policies that deliver the greatest outcomes and public value.

Panel Discussion: Society for Benefit Cost Analysis Conference - Washington, March 2022

Kirsten Jensen is a principal advisor economist at the New Zealand Treasury, where she focuses on public finance and leads CBAx. CBAx is Treasury’s cost-benefit analysis tool, which is publicly available. Kirsten is responsible for the design and implementation of CBAx.

Panel Discussion: Society for Benefit Cost Analysis Conference - Washington, March 2022

Lisa A. Robinson's research and teaching focus on the conduct of benefit-cost analysis, particularly for policies with outcomes that cannot be fully valued using market measures. She has led numerous assessments of the costs, benefits, and other impacts of environmental, health, and safety policies and regulations, developed related methods, and drafted guidance documents.

Chair: Society for Benefit Cost Analysis Conference

Peter Abelson has a B.A. from Oxford University, M.Sc. (Economics) from the London School of Economics, and a Ph.D from London University. Peter held a Personal Chair in Economics at Macquarie University. From 2006 to 2012, Peter was a Visiting Scholar and taught public finance at the University of Sydney. Peter is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University.

Panel Discussion: CBA and the discount rate debate - theory and practical implications and Australian CBA and buisness case application (with a transport focus) 

Marion Terrill is a leading transport and cities expert with a long history in public policy. She has worked on tax policy for the federal Treasury, and led the design and development of the MyGov account. She has provided expert analysis and advice on labour market policy for the Federal Government, the Business Council of Australia, and at the Australian National University.

Panel Discussion: CBA and the discount rate debate - theory and practical implications

Flavio Menezes is a Professor of Economics and director of the Australian Institute for Business and Economics at the University of Queensland (UQ).  He is also the Chair of the Queensland Competition Authority. He is a former president of the Economic Society of Australia (Queensland), was a member of the advisory board of the federal government’s Deregulation Taskforce and an elected member of UQ’s Academic Board and its Standing Committee. He is a former Head of the School of Economics at UQ, the chair of the Research Evaluation Committee for Economics and Commerce, Excellence of Research in Australia (ERA) 2018, and a member of the same committee for ERA 2015.

Chair Panel Discussion: CBA and the discount rate debate - theory and practical implications

Sarah Close is a Partner in PwC's Integrated Infrastructure team and is an infrastructure economics specialist. She has spent 17 years specialising in feasibility studies and economic analysis of major social and economic infrastructure across Australia. This has involved undertaking economic analysis across a range of sectors including transport, precincts, tourism infrastructure, social and affordable housing, energy and environment, schools, hospitals, regulatory and digital change. Through her work Sarah is passionate about improving people’s lives, enhancing productivity and shaping land use to create cities and regions of the future. Sarah is also a strong supporter of diversity and inclusion, as the lead of PwC's employee-led network relating to gender equality.  

Reining in ferel horses in Kosciuszko National Parks

Alexandra Humphrey Cifuentes is an economist with a passion for Urban Economics – using economics to help address challenges and opportunities posed by urban growth and climate change across water, liveability, health and other urban infrastructure. This includes assisting private and public sector clients with a range of policy, regulatory and commercial issues, including economic assessment of catalytic blue, green and grey infrastructure and governance solutions.

Reining in ferel horses in Kosciuszko National Parks

Mary Schnelle primarily works in the water and urban economics practices at Frontier Economics as an economist, providing qualitative and quantitative analysis on a range of economic issues. She has assisted public and private sector clients across a variety of projects, advising on cost-benefit analysis, business case, regulatory, and modelling issues. Mary is passionate about strong economics underpinning sustainable development and robust policy making.

Green and Blue Infrastructure

Steve Hartley is the Executive Director of the Department of Planning and Environment’s Resilience and Urban Sustainability Division. Steve is leading work aimed at embedding sustainability and resilience into planning process, with the goal of improving the people’s lives and the sustainability of the places we live, work and love. This work includes embedding green infrastructure, water sensitive urban design and managing natural and human induced risks into strategic decision making, upfront assessment and design, triple bottom line decision making and program delivery. Steve is an ecological economist by training, and in his time with government has worked in policy, operational and regulatory roles across environmental and natural resource management including water, waste, native forestry, biodiversity and strategic planning.

Green and Blue Infrastructure

Jennifer is an economist and Associate Director in Infrastructure Australia’s Project Advisory and Evaluation team, where she leads the evaluation of business cases that are seeking more than $250 million in funding from the Australian Government. She works closely with all levels of government, the private sector and industry to promote the development of robust, evidence-based business cases that address nationally significant problems and opportunities across the country.

Chair: Stream B Breakout Session

Sam currently works as the Director of Investment Appraisal at Investment NSW where he leads a fantastic team of microeconomists who conduct cost-benefit analysis on a variety of initiatives. Prior to this, Sam worked for 10 years at NSW Treasury where he was one of the authors of the 2017 NSW Government Guide to Cost-Benefit Analysis and numerous other sector specific CBA Frameworks.

Estimating the value of Olympic success

Conal Smith is a Wellington-based economist with interests spanning the economics of well-being, valuing intangible costs and benefits, social capital and trust, the behavioural drivers of economic outcomes, and social policy more generally.  He led the development of the first international guidelines on the measurement of subjective wellbeing and trust as well as the OECD's first well-being themed country report. Conal has worked on the policy applications of well-being measures in New Zealand, the OECD, and the developing world.  He co-taught the first formal course in wellbeing economics at Sciences Po in Paris.

Development of the NSW Indigenous assessment framework

Ignatius Forbes is an Associate Director in NSW Treasury’s Aboriginal Economic Wellbeing Branch which has been asked to develop a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) framework that can be applied to initiatives that impact First Nations people and communities. This First Nations CBA framework will help extend the work of the Centre for Evidence and Evaluation at NSW Treasury which provides economic analysis and advice to the NSW Government to put evidence‑based policy into practice. By working with agencies to improve the evidence base, NSW Treasury helps inform Government decisions so that public funds can be directed to the initiatives and social policies that deliver the greatest outcomes and public value.

Chair: Australian CBA and business case application (with transport focus)

Muheed advises public and private sector clients on a range of public policy and strategy issues. He has expertise in transport, infrastructure, and urban policy sectors leading work on a range of topics related to freight, supply chains, natural disaster risk reduction, investment policy, cities and regions, and regulation. Muheed works on Cost Benefit Analysis applied to these sectors of expertise