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Back to main menuCongratulations to Max Stiven, our Sir Frank Holmes Prize winner this year
Nov 2, 2026
Congratulations to Max Stiven, our Sir Frank Holmes Prize winner this year.
Every year, Motu Research offers The Sir Frank Holmes Prize - a cash prize of $5,000 for the top economics undergraduate student in Aotearoa New Zealand. We offer this prize to encourage top quantitative economics students to further their studies in econometrics at graduate level.
One of Motu Research’s founding motivations is to provide capacity building for young researchers, to help improve the quality of economic and public policy research in Aotearoa. Having well qualified people in Aotearoa who can understand the facts and analyse the economic forces at work can only help to ensure public policy works for the wellbeing of our country.
Max is a final-year economics and finance student at the University of Otago, and plans to pursue a Master’s degree in Economics and Econometrics next year, with a dissertation likely in housing economics or energy policy.
His achievements include receiving the William-Emery Scholarship in Commerce (2024) and placing first in his class for Introductory Econometrics and Microeconomic Theory (2025).
Max will begin an internship at NERA Economic Consulting in Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland this November.
Well done, Max!
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