New Zealand’s sexiest economist for 2013 is …

As we all know there are few things sexier than economics.  And it seems this applies to New Zealand economists as well with a massive 407 votes cast in the “New Zealand’s sexiest economist poll”.  This was especially impressive as voting was via IP address, meaning that many large organisation could only cast one vote.  This turnout heavily exceeded my initial estimate of 6 votes – implying that not only did my vote model fail to pick the Global Financial Crisis, or the value of the New Zealand, it also failed to actually estimate the number of votes the poll would receive.

After frantic voting the champion was … Darren Gibbs with 97 votes (24%)

Darren Gibbs – Deutsche Bank

This was an impressive performance, and no doubt shows the depth of appreciation for both Darren’s looks and his application of economic ideas and concepts.

In second place was Donna Purdue with 91 votes (21%).  She receive wide ranging support from the economist and non-economist community, and was constantly threatening for first place.

Eric Crampton (3rd place) and Gareth Kiernan (5th place) made an early run during the first day of voting, however both fell off the pace as the voting went on.  Shamubeel Eaqub lived up to his reputation as a dark horse, pulling in a number of votes on the final day to take out 4th spot!

Shamubeel and Jean-Pierre de Raad may feel aggrieved, as by putting down two members of NZIER I was splitting the NZIER vote (BNZ has a similar claim) – however, I would note that the combined NZIER vote still would have had them significantly off the pace set by Darren and Donna.

All in all, congrats to Darren, it was good to see that everyone received some votes, and economics was the winner on the day.