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
The Platform's Sean Plunket interviewed Eric Crampton on targeted government support packages.
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Police Minister Stuart Nash was right about retail crime. Solving the problem, as he suggested, requires reducing the number of targets. Read more
Mike Hosking discusses Eric Crampton's Newsroom column about managing retreat and insurance in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle. Read more
Managed retreat from floods and rising sea levels seems like a difficult problem. How to decide who might be allowed to live where, and what risks are acceptable? Read more
Massive worker shortages across numerous industries have led to calls for more immigration, on other side of the debate there are concerns about infrastructure capacity. This to and fro has long made a immigration a political football kicked between the parties. Read more
Director of Economics for the Infrastructure Commission, Peter Nunns, talks to Eric Crampton, Chief Economist for The New Zealand Initiative, about his research on the cost to deliver infrastructure in New Zealand and the need to improve the efficiency of our infrastructure sector, rather than only focusing on broadening the funding and financing options available to it. For more, please read the Infrastructure Commission’s report, “The lay of the land: Benchmarking New Zealand’s infrastructure delivery costs.” To listen to our latest podcasts, please subscribe to The New Zealand Initiative podcast on iTunes, Spotify or The Podcast App. Read more
Twelve years ago, an earthquake flattened much of Christchurch’s downtown. Civil defence, as well as those nearby and able to help, responded immediately to rescue those trapped. Read more
It has been a terrible couple of weeks. Assessing and costing cyclone damage from Northland to Wairarapa, but especially in Hawke’s Bay, will take months. Read more
Resilient infrastructure is crucial for protecting people during disasters and ensuring that communities can bounce back quickly in the aftermath of a crisis. Two powerful examples of this can be seen in New Zealand's response to the 2011 Christchurch earthquake and, more recently, Cyclone Gabrielle. Read more
Chris Bishop asked an excellent question during last week’s Select Committee hearings into the government’s proposed Natural and Built Environment Act. “Where does local democracy stop and the legitimate …national interest kick in?” The question cuts to the heart of one of the debates around resource management reform. Read more
Peaches come from a can. They were put there by a man. Read more
In this week's podcast we are diving into the much-anticipated policy shift announced by the country's new Prime Minister. The speculation has been building for months, with many wondering what policies will be scrapped and which ones will remain. Read more
When the government says reducing living costs is its highest priority, it seems a bit crazy to impose punitive anti-dumping duties on imports. And yet, here we are. Read more
This submission in response to the Natural and Built Environment Bill is made by The New Zealand Initiative, a Wellington-based think tank supported primarily by major New Zealand businesses. The Initiative has been deeply concerned about resource management policy and practice since its establishment in 2012. Read more
There’s a special kind of mental contortion that seems required in politics. A politician has to be able to hold mutually inconsistent beliefs in their head and not notice that they don’t really work well together. Read more