Heuser | Whittington brings rigour to infrastructure, energy, water, transport, local government and tax.
We turn difficult decisions under uncertainty into something analytically tractable, for governments and the organisations they regulate.
Recent projects
‘Grounded’: local government reform at the right scale
Heuser | Whittington built the sector’s toolkit for testing local-government reform proposals against outcomes, at the appropriate scale. Published by Te Uru Kahika, the collective of New Zealand’s sixteen regional and unitary councils.
Crown fuel security—decision making during radical uncertainty
A cost-benefit analysis built on market-implied price distribution, turning a difficult tail-risk decision into something analytically tractable.
Regional biosecurity—a small shared premium against a large loss
The first consolidated evidence base on the value of regional biosecurity: ratepayers fund ~78% of a $142m programme that helps protect ~$34bn of at-risk production and avoids an estimated $1.7bn loss from a five-year lapse.
New Zealand Superannuation reform
A Monte Carlo model of the main reform levers on real NZ data, delivered as an interactive tool.
Functional economic geography of a city
Where a reorganised city’s economy reaches, using commuting and spending flows to test alternative council boundaries.
Outdoor access—nineteen agencies, one evidence base
A five-tier mapping of how nineteen central agencies’ objectives depend on outdoor access, now the basis for a proposed National Outdoor Access Plan.
Facing a decision like these?
Email usChristchurch photograph: Michal Klajban, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Sectors and capabilities
Where the firm works, and the analysis we bring.
Local government and regional economies
We help councils and the regional sector make the case for reform at the right scale: functional economic geography, the fiscal mechanics of splitting assets, debt and rates between entities, and the evidence base behind co-investment.
Tax, fiscal and public finance
We advise on the design and cost of tax and fiscal instruments, including revenue estimation, distributional and behavioural analysis. Our partners have led tax-policy work at the centre of government and as external challenge to it.
Energy and emissions
We bring techno-economic rigour to the low-carbon transition: gas-transition pathways, hydrogen and fuel economics, geothermal value, and the cost and emissions trade-offs of network and fuel decisions across New Zealand and the Pacific.
Water, infrastructure and regulation
We work on financially sustainable water and infrastructure: entity and CCO design, tariff and affordability frameworks, and economic regulation.
Transport and land use
We quantify the economics of transport and land-use decisions: total-cost-of-ownership and emissions for fleets, externalities methodology, and cost-benefit evidence for plan changes.
Industry, competition and markets
We analyse how regulation shapes competition and value in New Zealand's primary industries: the settings behind regulated pricing, the allocation of quotas and access rights, and the statutory reviews that reset the rules. We pair regulatory economics with sector knowledge in dairy and meat, and we are as comfortable framing a review for a ministry as we are giving evidence to a select committee.
Pacific development and PPPs
We advise Pacific governments and development partners on infrastructure finance, sector reform, and the law and institutions behind it.
Key experts
Andreas Heuser
At Heuser | Whittington, Andreas leads the firm’s local government and energy economics work, regulatory economics, and cost-benefit analysis.
Before establishing HW, Andreas spent around eight years leading economic advisory work at a previous firm, with deep specialisms in energy and future fuels (including hydrogen techno-economics), water-sector reform, resource-management economics, transport, and Pacific infrastructure and PPPs. He chaired the Government’s Technical Advisory Group on water-services reform, led the modelling behind New Zealand’s national hydrogen roadmap, and is an accredited RMA commissioner.
Phil Whittington
At Heuser | Whittington, Phil leads the firm’s tax, fiscal and public-finance work, and modelling under uncertainty.
Before establishing HW, Phil was Chief Economist at Inland Revenue, where he led the economic analysis behind the Tax Working Group’s capital gains proposals and other major tax reforms.