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
In February, New Zealand’s PCR Covid testing system fell apart. The Ministry of Health, the Director-General of Health, and the Ministers should have known it would happen. Read more
Eric Crampton talks to Heather Du Plessis Allan, Newstalk ZB about why we should care that Labour gave NZTA officials less than 24 hours to come up with policy on the petrol excise duty discount.
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Oliver Hartwich talks with Eric Crampton about the Government's rushed policy making for a fuel tax and Road User Charge holiday. To listen to our latest podcasts, please subscribe to The New Zealand Initiative podcast on iTunes, Spotify or The Podcast App. Read more
In this week's Initiative podcast, Chief Economist Dr Eric Crampton discusses with statistician Len Cook about concern to changes being made to the legislation governing New Zealand's statistics agency. To listen to our latest podcasts, please subscribe to The New Zealand Initiative podcast on iTunes, Spotify or The Podcast App. Read more
Just before 3 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, about a dozen NZTA and Ministry of Transport officials received a weekend-ruining email. Subject: “Cabinet paper: Urgent”. Read more
Oliver Hartwich discusses the biggest economic issues of the week with Eric Crampton and Bryce Wilkinson: How transitory is inflation? Will we ever see the return of supply-side economics? Read more
Bring on the bondholders. New Zealand’s proposed Three Waters Reforms, which would force the amalgamation of council water services into four large providers under convoluted governance arrangements, is an attempted solution to a real problem. Read more
A lot of problems have no good solutions – just ones that are bad in different ways. Pricing greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture is important, and every way of doing it is going to have problems. This week, the agricultural sector put up its proposed solution. Read more
Hades, God of the Greek underworld, decreed that Sisyphus, for trying to cheat death, must forever push a heavy boulder up a hill. It would roll back down again every time. Read more
It’s hard to solve a problem like Working for Families. The most frustrating thing, for an economist who watches policy, are the policy dollar bills left lying around on sidewalks. Read more
Pew’s latest survey is not cause for despair – if you know a little bit about the state of public knowledge. Pew finds that only 56% of Americans know that Ukraine is not part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO. Read more
Eric Crampton talks to Bryan Crump, Radio NZ Nights about his favourite economist - Gordon Tulloch.
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Tune in to enough climate change events in Wellington, and you’re bound to hear someone claim that nobody living in a city needs an SUV. Leave aside for now that fuel companies must hand in carbon credits through the Emissions Trading Scheme to cover every bit of carbon dioxide coming from tailpipes. Read more
Oliver Hartwich and Eric Crampton interview Foodstuffs North Island’s CEO Chris Quin and Independent Director Peter Schuyt about the Commerce Commission’s enquiry into the grocery retail sector. To listen to our latest podcasts, please subscribe to The New Zealand Initiative podcast on iTunes, Spotify or The Podcast App. Read more
There were a lot of truly classic episodes of Seinfeld, but among the very best, at least for economists, was “The Bottle Deposit”. And we may be in for a repeat if the Ministry for the Environment has anything to say about it. Read more