David de Boer

Principal Economist

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David’s focus is regulatory economics and the application of regulatory systems in the real world, especially as these apply to infrastructure entities. David has advised on regulatory determinations, on the establishment and periodic review of regulatory regimes, on regulatory price setting approaches and on submissions to regulators and government bodies on a range of regulatory matters. David has also undertaken market studies, advised on mergers, and has published research on regulation and market performance.

David has recently advised both Wellington Water and the NZ Government’s Three Waters reforms on the design and implementation of the regulatory regimes of the water sector. This was a complex assignment that traversed both technical regulation (drinking water standards for example), economic regulation of the proposed water entities as well as the regulation of consumer service quality. Prior to his water advisory work, David was the principal advisor on regulation and network economics to the local electricity networks and before that he advised the Commerce Commission on regulatory matters with the separation of Telecom into Chorus and Spark. David also provided commercial and strategic marketing advice to Crown Fibre Holdings regarding the establishment of the Local Fibre Entities.

David has a professional career that spans both economic consulting and the management of infrastructure entities. He has considerable commercial experience that provides a quality foundation from which his consulting career developed. David worked directly with clients for part of his consulting career, but he spent several years as a senior consultant at NZIER where he worked on regulatory and competition projects across a range of sectors. David holds an MCA (Economics) and an MBA (Finance & Strategy) from Victoria University.