Eric is the Chief Economist at The New Zealand Initiative. With the Initiative, he has worked in policy areas ranging from freshwater management to policy for earthquake preparedness, and from local government to technology policy. He has recently focused on policy related to Covid-19 response. He served as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in Economics at the Department of Economics & Finance at the University of Canterbury from 2003 through 2014.
Eric’s columns and commentary appear regularly in New Zealand’s major media outlets, as well as on his blog, Offsetting Behaviour. He can also be found on Twitter at @ericcrampton .
Latest reports:
Roadmap for Recovery: Briefing to the Incoming Government (2020)
Democracy in the Dark (2020)
Safe Arrivals (2020)
Policy Point: Open for minds: export education and recovery (2020)
Policy Point: Stay on Target (2020)
Research Note: Effective Treatment: Public policy prescription for a pandemic (2020)
Policy Point: Time to Process (2020)
Research Note: Seeing the problem, but missing the point: Decile dilemmas (2019)
Research Note: The Unreserved Bank of New Zealand: Why unorthodox monetary policy needs boundaries (2019)
Policy Point: Biting education bullets (2019)
Refreshing Water: Valuing the priceless (2019)
Score! Transforming NCEA Data (2018)
Recipe for disaster: Building policy on shaky ground (2018)
Analog Regulation, Digital World (2017)
The Outside of the Asylum: A New Zealander’s guide to the world out there (2017)
Decade of Debt: The Cost of Interest-free Student Loans (2016)
Deadly Heritage (2016)
In the Zone: Creating a Toolbox for Regional Prosperity (2015)
The Case for Economic Growth (2015)
Phone: +64 4 499 0790
The holiday season always brings the requisite warnings about the summer road toll. Drive to the conditions, and the faster the speed, the bigger the mess. Read more
In this episode of the Initiative’s Freely Speaking podcast, Matt Burgess, Eric Crampton and Oliver Hartwich trade hypotheses on why the New Zealand housing market is so broken with a few comparisons in Europe and how a change of incentives for local councils might be a big part of the solution. If you would like to listen to our latest podcasts, please subscribe to The New Zealand Initiative podcast on iTunes, Spotify or The Podcast App. Read more
Air compressor tanks come with a maximum pressure rating. The things are built to handle pressure, but only so much. Read more
Thanks for tuning in to the New Zealand Initiative’s Freely Speaking podcast where the style is casual, the topics are important and the brakes are off. In this episode, around the table is executive director Oliver Hartwich, chief economist Eric Crampton, senior fellow Bryce Wilkinson and chief editor Nathan Smith. Read more
It sounds so easy: If waiting on a Covid-19 test, stay home. It’s probably just a cold, but the costs if it isn’t are high. Read more
This episode of the Freely Speaking podcast features executive director Oliver Hartwich, chief economist Eric Crampton, senior economist Matt Burgess and senior fellow Bryce Wilkinson. The team unpicks the strange lack of deep conversation in New Zealand and why Kiwis seem so reluctant to talk about the big issues. Read more
If you really want to spoil your next pleasant weekend urban walk, here’s a suggestion. Pull out your phone, open homes.co.nz and check the estimated prices of every house along the way. Read more
In this episode of the New Zealand Initiative’s “Freely Speaking” podcast, around the table is executive director Oliver Hartwich, chief economist Eric Crampton, senior economist Matt Burgess and senior fellow Bryce Wilkinson. The team unpacks the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s curious steps into climate change politics and mulls over the central bank's real mandate. Read more
A Joe Biden Presidency looks increasingly likely. But the election was nail-bitingly close. Read more
There is a real chance that Kiwis will miss out on celebrating Christmas at home, because spaces in managed isolation are booking out fast. From now on, everyone traveling back to New Zealand needs a voucher for their two-week quarantine. Read more
It all finally started coming together in the 2021 Budget. The pieces existed before it, but nobody had put them together. Read more
A distinct advantage that the bench sciences and medical sciences have over the social sciences is the ability to run experiments. If a clinician wants to run a trial to check whether a new drug might work, the regulatory hurdles can be substantial, but the trial is certainly possible. Read more
In this week’s New Zealand Initiative podcast, the delayed election is finally decided. But the next term for a Labour majority government will be tough as it wrestles with the consequences of Covid-19. Read more
Eric Crampton talks to Bryan Crump on Radio NZ Nights about the problem with climate policy and how this can be utilised for an effective Covid recovery.
The New Zealand Initiative · Eric Crampton the problem with climate policy Read more
Election campaigns are strange times. There can be a lot of talk about policy, but the real policy apparatus of government goes into limbo. Read more