Reuben Beard after graduating with his Master of Economics degree in December 2025.
It’s becoming a bit of a habit. The annual New Zealand Association of Economists (NZAE) Honours/Masters Dissertation Prize has been awarded to an Otago graduate – again.
This year’s winner is Reuben Beard, with a highly topical thesis titled, ‘Do petrol prices rise faster than they fall in the New Zealand retail market?’
With four of the last five winners of this award hailing from Otago, the Department of Economics is riding dissertation-high.
“It feels a bit like Groundhog Day,” says Dr Peter Gibbard who, along with Professor Alfred Haug, supervised Reuben’s thesis.
Peter and Alfred have nothing but lavish praise for Reuben’s academic might.
“He consistently performed at the highest level across a variety of subjects, ranging from statistics, to mathematics, to psychology, to economic theory. His master’s thesis was the capstone to a stellar academic career at Otago,” Peter says.
“Reuben used econometrics to investigate a hypothesis that is often asserted (but rarely tested) in public debates about petrol prices: the hypothesis that, in some sense, petrol stations have a greater readiness to increase prices than to decrease them.
“His thesis displayed not only an impressive mastery of statistical techniques, but also an ability to think intuitively about the economic forces explaining the observed prices,” Peter says.
Reuben has been petrol-attuned for some time now.
“I've been interested in the petrol market since high school”, he says.
“For my Year 13 economics project, I looked at whether low-cost competitors such as Gull and Waitomo reduced prices at nearby petrol stations. So it’s kind of a full circle moment where that interest eventually became my master’s thesis.”
In his prize-winning thesis, he examined the response of New Zealand petrol stations to changes in international crude oil prices, with particular focus on what economists call the ‘rockets and feathers’ effect (prices rising like a rocket and falling like a feather).
“The idea is that petrol stations with market power may quickly pass on cost increases while being slower to pass on cost decreases, allowing them to earn higher margins.”
To investigate this, Reuben used daily station-level data from the crowdsourced fuel price app GASPY. It yielded a dataset more detailed than those used in previous New Zealand studies, allowing him to produce a more granular analysis of pricing behaviour.
“The results surprised me. I expected to find evidence of rockets and feathers, but instead found that petrol stations pass through cost increases and decreases at the same speed. This suggests that increased market scrutiny and policy reforms may have contributed to making the retail fuel market more competitive. The research has since become particularly relevant given the recent volatility in global oil markets.”
Reuben now works as a graduate analyst in the forecasting team at the Reserve Bank – Te Pūtea Matua, where he gets to deepen his love of economics.
“What I enjoy most is bringing together data, modelling, economic theory and policy to tell a meaningful story. My thesis combined all of those elements to answer a question with implications for policymakers, regulators and everyday New Zealanders.”
He says he’s grateful for the expert steering he received from his thesis supervisors.
“Peter and Alfred complemented each other really well. Peter brought expertise in competition economics, while Alfred brought expertise on the macro-econometric modelling. Having both perspectives was extremely useful, and I couldn't have completed the project without their support.”
He’s not at all surprised by Otago's winning streak with the NZAE award.
“I think it’s a reflection of the rigour of the Department of Economics and the support that its professors provide their students.”
As part of his NZAE award, Reuben received a prize purse of $500. Asked if he’ll put that to good use weathering any rocketing petrol prices, he says, “It’ll either be new running shoes or a strategic reserve of petrol. I’ll have to think of what’s a better investment.”
– Kōrero by Claire Finlayson, Communications Adviser (Otago Business School)
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