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
Nobody knows what vaccination rate would allow restrictions to ease safely. But rates need to rise substantially. Read more
If lockdown had a bright side, it was having more time with the kids. Only needing to be online for school by 9, rather than rushing out the door at 7.30, meant bedtimes could be a bit later. Read more
Chittenden is the third most vaccinated county in America’s most vaccinated state: Vermont. As of late last week, 87.3% of Chittenden residents over the age of twelve had been vaccinated –close to New Zealand’s unofficial 90% target. Read more
Politics is hard when every available option is terrible. Get ready for a year of awful choices. Read more
As Auckland struggles, hopefully successfully, to bring the current Delta outbreak under control, let us imagine a future variant – the Iota variant. This hypothetical variant is identical to Delta, except for one detail. Read more
Eric Crampton talks to Wallace Chapman on Radio NZ - The Panel about a Universal Basic Income for young people to help them get started in life.
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As the anniversary of the first Covid lockdown approached, the Ministry of Health had some time on its hands. It had issued a new consultation paper and was looking for feedback. Read more
Freshwater politics is a nightmare. Long-term improvements in water quality depend on the development of systems that can withstand government and policy changes. Read more
This submission in response to the Commerce Commission’s (Commission) Market study into the retail grocery sector draft report, is made by The New Zealand Initiative (the Initiative), a think tank supported primarily by major New Zealand businesses. In combination, our members employ more than 150,000 people. Read more
Wellington (Monday, 23August 2021): Improving water quality requires more than short-term fixes, concludes a new report released today by the New Zealand Initiative. Any Government committed to improving New Zealand’s freshwater quality must build the institutions that can deliver it while withstanding changes in Government. Read more
An independent review of the Overseer farm management tool concluded that the software package is far from ideal for Council water quality management. Providing a relatively coarse view of nutrient loss from farms, Overseer can help farms in improving on-farm practice. Read more
Providing future generations with rivers and aquifers at least as clean as our generation found them requires durable freshwater management systems that can stand the test of time. Regulatory measures can improve outcomes for now. Read more
The best option in a bad state of the world is not going to be great. But taking it up is still the best response – while working to reduce the risk of it happening again. Read more
Something always allocates. When anything is relatively scarce, something has to decide how the scarce thing is used: who gets it, who doesn’t, and what might encourage more of the scarce thing to be provided. Read more
There is a lot of distance yet to cover from here to December’s completion of the adult vaccine roll-out – and far more distance still until the pandemic ends. But the government’s announcement this week of the intended path forward was welcome. Read more