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
If New Zealand required local crash testing for every new car model, dealerships would be late to stock a small number of mass-market vehicles at higher cost. It would be stupid. Read more
Dr Eric Crampton was briefly on Newstalk ZB's news segment talking about his latest research note. Listen below. Read more
When a new pharmaceutical is so successful that it blows out the national income accounts, it’s probably safe to call it a wonderdrug. Semaglutide, marketed as Ozempic when treating Type II diabetes and as Wegovy for weight loss, turned a half-year 0.3% decline in Danish GDP into a 1.7% year-on-year increase. Read more
Wellington (Thursday, 2 November 2023) - The New Zealand Initiative’s latest report argues New Zealand could have safe and faster access to new pharmaceuticals by relying on overseas approvals. The report proposes the Rule of Two. Read more
Requiring Medsafe approval for pharmaceuticals already approved by at least two trustworthy overseas regulators makes little sense. Foreign pharmaceutical approval agencies are well-resourced. Read more
“There is no alternative” is a powerful framing if you want your alternative to prevail – even more so when regulations make it too easy for other options to be far too hard. Wellington’s Council got a dose of it over the past week. Read more
Dr Eric Crampton talks to RNZ about the Wellington Town Hall strengthening project budget blowout and the value of heritage. Listen to the interview below. Read more
No election platform survives contact with post-election coalition negotiations. But one outcome of the current negotiations seems rather obvious. Read more
The true state of public finances is not meant to surprise any incoming government. The Public Finance Act 1989 aimed to prevent any outgoing government from handing an incoming government the kind of horrors David Lange and Roger Douglas found in the books in 1984. Read more
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. At least according to the Sage of Baltimore, journalist and essayist H.L. Read more
If punters at Australia’s Betfair are right, there’s an eighty-nine percent chance any government formed after Saturday’s election will have a National Party Prime Minister. But the things Betfair can’t tell us makes me miss our missing election stock market. Read more
Pro-housing policy generally tries to find ways of outflanking NIMBYs – the Not In My BackYard objectors to new development. It’s an approach well-supported in academic research and reflected in New Zealand policy. Read more
As a proud Canadian, I am occasionally compelled to draw Kiwis’ attention to the wonderful service that my homeland provides to the world. The election here has been tedious. Read more
Dr Eric Crampton talks to RNZ about media funding and regulation. Listen to the interview below. Read more
On Newstalk ZB's Early Edition, Dr Eric Crampton talks to Kate Hawkesby about Labour's pledge to help new supermarket retailers and warns against subsidising entry for new chains. Listen to his interview below. Read more