Peter Lambert, economics professor at the University of Oregon, Jean-Yves Duclos, editor of the Journal of Economic Inequality and economics professor at Laval University in Canada, and Sir Tony Atkinson, professor of economics at Oxford University, said Miss Elliott had remarkable ability for a young person, exhibited considerable prescience in her thinking and could have been a leader in the field of welfare economics.
Prof Lambert said a paper written by Miss Elliott titled "Why measure inequality? A discussion of the concept of equality", which was published in this month's edition of the Oxford University's economics journal Oxonomics, was "easily the best essay on inequality he had ever read".
Miss Elliott had taken part in a seminar on Microeconomics he gave at the University of Otago in February 2007.
She had subsequently emailed him and sent him a copy of her paper on inequality, which he found was "stunningly to-the-point, thoughtful and mature".
Prof Duclos called the paper a "remarkable piece of research for such a young person".
In a few paragraphs, Miss Elliott had been able to strike right at the core of welfare economics and grasp many of its complex philosophical and ethical issues, he said.
"Elliott certainly had a beautiful mind."
In a postscript to the published article, Prof Atkinson said in the time since her death, the issues she "treated so well" in her essay had come to the forefront of public debate as people learned the full extent of the crisis in the financial markets and about the behaviour of those whose decisions led to the crisis.
"Her choice of subject exhibited considerable prescience."
Her essay highlighted that economics was a moral science and showed why welfare economics should return to a central role in the teaching of the subject.
Prof Lambert had no doubt Miss Elliott could have had an academic career.
"It is not a stretch to imagine that she could have become a leader in intellectual thinking, somewhere near the border where philosophy, ethics, social justice and economics meet."
Her qualities would have led her to high places, he said.
If she found satisfaction in working for the betterment of the country, she might also have had a long career at the Treasury.
