Chris Murphy is Visiting Fellow, ANU (from 2014)

Chris Murphy specialises in economy-wide modelling, focussing on macroeconomic policy and tax policy.

He began his career at The Treasury in 1978 and then led an economy-wide modelling team at the Office of EPAC. He was a Senior Lecturer in Econometrics at the ANU until 1991. He then led modelling teams at Access Economics, Econtech, KPMG Econtech and Independent Economics. He commenced as a Visiting Fellow at the ANU in 2014.

He developed the Murphy macro-econometric model of the Australian economy and subsequently developed models of the same type for the Governments of New Zealand, Singapore and Malaysia for use in macro policy analysis and forecasting.

Chris has developed a series of computable general equilibrium models for assessing the effects of tax reform proposals. These models were used by the Australian Government before the introduction of GST, in the Henry Tax Review report and in the 2015-16 Tax Review process.  Chris was also commissioned by The Treasury to model the proposed cut in the company tax rate from 30 to 25 per cent.

In 2016-2017 Chris was commissioned by The Treasury to undertake a department-wide review of its economic modelling capability.

In 2019-2021 Chris was modelling adviser to The Treasury when they developed their new forecasting model known as EMMA.  In the paper setting out the modelling approach, Treasury acknowledged his contribution. 

"Drawing on his extensive experience in macroeconomic modelling, Chris has made a major contribution to the development of the model in an advisory role, in particular in the development of the business and financial sectors of the model. He has also had the leading role in writing this paper."

Chris has also served as modelling adviser to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) since 1998.  Chris and the MAS developed the Monetary Model of Singapore (MMS), and he continues to work with the MAS in further developing MMS, which is the MAS flagship model for macroeconomic forecasting and policy analysis.

Chris has used his own macroeconometric model of Australia in a detailed study of "Fiscal Policy in the COVID-19 era".

His latest research is focussed on developing a new dynamic model to analyse Australian tax policy from both efficiency and equity perspectives.