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
This submission in response to the Review of the Emissions Trading Scheme and permanent forestry category changes. In summary, we submit: (a) The Emissions Trading Scheme can usefully be strengthened; (b) The proposed options do not usefully strengthen the ETS. Read more
Donald Trump convinced himself and a lot of Americans he could build a wall at America’s southern border and make Mexico pay for it. It was an obviously terrible idea. Read more
The country’s newspapers have been arguing that tech platforms, like Facebook and Google, should be paying them whenever they link to news. They should be careful what they wish for. Read more
Dr Eric Crampton spoke to Radio Waatea about how providing a universal weekly payment would be less expensive for the government than eliminating the GST on food.
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There is plenty of room for honest disagreement on economic policy. Normally, it’s about trade-offs among worthy goals. Read more
Nights regular and chief economist with The New Zealand Initiative, Eric Crampton, talks to Mark about the removal of GST from food and how we fund infrastructure.
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This submission in response to Auckland’s Future Development Strategy is made by The New Zealand Initiative (the Initiative), a Wellington-based think tank supported primarily by major New Zealand businesses. In combination, our members employ more than 150,000 people. Read more
Our Chief Economist Dr Eric Crampton joined TVNZ Breakfast to discuss Te Pāti Māori's election policy to remove GST on food.
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ACT has announced they want to introduce a "world-class toll roading system" that will use private sector financing and expertise to get new roads built faster and to maintain existing roads quicker and more effectively. Dr Eric Crampton joins Radio NZ's The Panel, Wallace Chapman and panellists Zoe George and Stephen Franks, to discuss whether we should introduce more toll roads. Read more
There is no chance it is deliberate. Deliberateness would require more coordination than government is able to manage these days. Read more
One bit of the Climate Commission’s draft advice, released in March, seemed particularly strange. The Commission worried that a surge in forest planting over the coming years would bring about a collapse in ETS prices in the 2030s and put New Zealand’s net zero commitments beyond 2050 at risk. Read more
Experimental psychology was a bit wild in the 1960s. Scientists would run experiments on beagles, giving them painful shocks. Read more
There are no silver bullets in housing and infrastructure policy. Too many separate problems compound, resulting in a severe housing shortage and some of the world’s least affordable housing. Read more
Wellington (Tuesday, 11 July 2023) – The New Zealand Initiative’s new report suggests better tools for infrastructure funding and financing. Chief economist Dr Eric Crampton argues infrastructure funding and financing are a root cause of New Zealand’s housing shortage. Read more
In this week’s podcast, Dr Eric Crampton continues his conversation with Professor Rhema Vaithianathan from Auckland University of Technology. This fascinating discussion tackles the world of data integration within social services, and critiques past failures, citing a need for real-life stories rather than cold, hard data. Read more