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
Imagine that you had to sell your house in a desperate hurry – Melbourne beckons, and the job there starts soon. Some things that would help the sale go ahead would be well worth doing. Read more
New Zealand’s planning processes have been breaking Wright’s Law for too long. Yesterday’s resource management reform announcement goes some way to fixing things. Read more
If for some ghastly reason you wanted to hit two birds, and you had two stones, trying to hit both birds with each stone would be pretty silly. You can throw both stones, so why not target things a bit more closely? Read more
In this episode, Eric talks to Patrick Phelps, Manager at Minerals West Coast, about the complex challenges of rural council governance including infrastructure costs, heritage regulations, and voter apathy. They discuss how small towns struggle with funding vital services across widely dispersed communities while managing political incentives that often lead to misplaced priorities and wasteful spending. Read more
It isn’t the congestion charging scheme that I would have most-preferred. But the best congestion charging scheme is the one that can get across the line and enjoy durable political support, so long as it can work. Read more
Late last year, online newsmagazine The Spinoff asked the usual suspects for their one-sentence summary of the year ahead. I stole a line from Gramsci, or at least a paraphrased version of it. Read more
New Zealand has one of the world’s most centralised governments. Centralisation has some advantages. Read more
Every student of game theory knows that madness can have its advantages. If your enemy believes you will retaliate, regardless of the cost to yourself, they may think twice before crossing you. Read more
In this episode, Eric talks to Marko Garlick about how New Zealand's local government planning and zoning regulations create anti-competitive conditions in the retail sector, particularly for supermarkets. They explore specific examples of bizarre regulatory barriers to market entry and discuss potential solutions to enable more competition, such as national policy statements and amendments to the Commerce Act. Read more
Treasury is consulting on changes to the Natural Hazards Insurance Levy – formerly known as the EQC levy. The Herald’s Jenée Tibshraeny reports that Treasury is considering increasing the Natural Hazards Commission’s cap from $345,000 to $460,000 while increasing the levy by up to $400 per year to make up the difference. Read more
Everybody knows the dice are loaded. At least according to Canadian policy analyst Leonard Cohen. Read more
The government has made increased competition a highlight of its economic growth agenda. So, one might have hoped that a targeted review of the Commerce Act would aim at the big problems blocking open and competitive markets. Read more
1. INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 1.1 This submission on the discussion document Promoting competition in New Zealand – A targeted review of the Commerce Act 1986 is made by The New Zealand Initiative (the Initiative), a Wellington-based think tank supported primarily by major New Zealand businesses, and the International Center for Law & Economics [ICLE]. Read more
I. Introduction We appreciate the opportunity to comment on the Australian Government’s (“Government”) consultation on the implementation of a new digital competition regime.1 As we outline in our comments, the Government’s proposal rests on the assumption that there exists a broad global consensus on the need for ex-ante rules for digital platforms. This purported consensus is, however, largely overstated. Read more
Some essays are timeless. In 1964, Richard Hofstadter diagnosed what he called “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”. Read more