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
Dr Eric Crampton joins Rachel Smalley to discuss the notion of preferential voting and how people can vote strategically in the referendum.
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It’s a rare day I do not pass by one of Wellington’s many bucket collectors. On my morning walk from the train station through to Lambton Quay, it’s more common to see at least three or four of them than to see none. Read more
When Cal Tech economist D. Roderick Kiewiet looked hard at the stack of American regulations affecting health and safety, he found a mess. Read more
It is really hard not to sympathise with calls for increasing the refugee quota. Seeing the pictures from the Mediterranean tugs at the heartstrings. Read more
We this week released Elisabeth Prasad's report running some of the numbers on whether compensating live kidney donors makes sense. She finds that the typical kidney transplant saves the Ministry of Health on net about $125,000 over the longer term: dialysis is expensive. Read more
Australia National University’s Dr. George Barker suggested that New Zealand could do well by strengthening its copyright legislation. He warned against the fair dealing exceptions that have crept into the law and asked, “Why not have copyright law like property law—i.e. Read more
The most important norm in economics was set by economist Vilfredo Pareto about a century ago. Put simply, the Pareto Criterion says that anything making at least one person better off, while making nobody else worse off, is desirable. Read more
There are not too many policies that can save and improve lives while saving the government money, but Chris Bishop’s member’s bill providing greater compensation to live organ donors may be one. Late Wednesday evening, Parliament voted that Bishop’s member’s bill should proceed to committee. Read more
The rationales of individual freedom and personal responsibility with Eric Crampton, head of research at The New Zealand Initiative. Tonight, the economics around organ donation and sale. Read more
The power to say no is also the power to make the rules, or at least in part. Parliament legislates. Read more
Dr Eric Crampton on Radio NZ: Government looking at ways to add GST to online services Read more
Online shoppers beware: getting that cheap paperback from Book Depository could get a lot harder. But, it will depend on just how the government goes about taxing direct-to-consumer imports. Read more
You never really understand an issue until you can argue from the opposing view. Being able to make the best possible case for something you oppose helps you to avoid attacking strawmen and means that your own argument will be stronger for it. Read more
When the government moved to privatise Mount Eden prison, I was a sceptic. There can be very good arguments for outsourcing service provision or privatisation in all kinds of sectors, but prisons were about the last on my list. Read more
I’m not a fan of paternalism but in one area it has its place: education. Students should be able to choose from a range of disciplines to find the one that best suits their inclinations, interests and future career ambitions. Read more