Eric Crampton is Chief Economist with the New Zealand Initiative.
He applies an economist’s lens to a broad range of policy areas, from devolution and housing policy to student loans and environmental policy. He served on Minister Twyford’s Urban Land Markets Research Group and on Minister Bishop’s Housing Economic Advisory Group.
Most recently, he has been looking at devolution to First Nations in Canada.
He is a regular columnist with Stuff and with Newsroom; his economic and policy commentary appears across most media outlets. He can also be found on Twitter at @ericcrampton.
Phone: +64 4 499 0790
The four months before an election aren’t great for those who care about good policy. Politicians’ competence at other times is questionable. Read more
Following the government's decision to delay a planned fuel excise increase until 2028, our Chief Economist Eric Crampton joined Sean Plunket on The Platform to explain why funding roads this way is bad policy. Eric traced how New Zealand's road funding has drifted from a disciplined, user-pays model, where road user charges and fuel excise funded maintenance first, with taxpayer money reserved for tightly-vetted new capacity, to one where general taxpayer top-ups have become routine and cost-benefit standards have slipped. Read more
For practical purposes, not emitting a tonne of carbon dioxide is equivalent to pulling a tonne of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and securely sequestering it, so long as the accounting is sound. The Zero Carbon Act consequently requires net zero for greenhouse gases other than biogenic methane. Read more
Dr Eric Crampton talks with Wallace Chapman, alongside panellists Zoe George and Tim Wilson on The Panel about the Government's announcement that it will delay increases to fuel taxes by a year. Eric shares his opinions on the decision and offers up some alternative answers. Read more
Most news clips from Parliament are from Question Time. It is at least as much performance theatre as a mechanism for holding government to account. Read more
This week, the government introduced legislation intended to protect youths from online harms. If the Bill passes, covered social media platforms will be required to take ‘reasonable steps’ to stop under-16s from having accounts. Platforms that do not do enough will risk large fines. Read more
Dr Eric Crampton talked to Sean Plunket on The Platform about Treasury's lack of economic expertise. Dr Crampton argued that Treasury can tell you more statistics about they're diversity than the economic education of their staff, begging the question if Treasury are achieving their purpose. Read more
Wellington (Wednesday, 19 August 2026) – The New Zealand Initiative welcomes today’s announcement that the coming urban planning system will include a competition watchdog. Hon Chris Bishop, Minister for RMA Reform, and Simon Court, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for RMA Reform, announced today that the coming Planning Bill will include an independent Urban Land Market Officer. Read more
The back of the bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label that I keep at the office has two labels. The first company-branded label appears to be designed for international markets that use the metric system. Read more
New Zealand’s Treasury has two big jobs that nobody else can do. They’re both highlighted in the first line of Treasury’s ‘Who we are’ website. Read more
Election 2023 brought us a new government committed to localist approaches. National had campaigned on greater localism as an alternative to the prior Labour government’s more centralising tendencies across water services, polytechnics, housing and farming regulation. Read more
Sometimes, a consultation process makes me wonder just how the consultation document got out the door in the first place. Submissions closed last week on the Reserve Bank’s Keeping Cash Local consultation process. Read more
Everyone knows that culture matters, at least in a vague sense. But showing how it matters has been like pinning jelly to a wall. Read more
It’s only going to get weirder from here, folks. Trump did not like existing social media platforms, so he launched his own, Truth Social, in 2022. Read more
1. INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 1.1 This submission on the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s Keeping Cash Local consultation is made by The New Zealand Initiative (the Initiative), a Wellington-based think tank supported primarily by major New Zealand businesses. Read more