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
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
Oliver Hartwich and Eric Crampton talk to University of Auckland’s Professor Des Gorman (Ngāpuhi), from the University’s Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences. The team discuss New Zealand’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and what could be done differently. Read more
Eric Crampton and Matt Burgess discuss the thousands of homes hit by blackouts on the coldest night of the year and government’s response to it so far. Decisions should be made only after the facts are established. Read more
When Judith Collins and Julie-Anne Genter argue about expensive Auckland transport projects, I worry that they’re both right about the problems in the other’s preferred alternative. And it points to the need for better ways of deciding on transport investments. Read more
KiwiBuild never made any sense and could not work. The reason was simple. Read more
Oliver Hartwich and Eric Crampton join Matt Burgess to talk about the government’s performance on immigration since the lockdown. Skilled migrants who cannot get their families into the country or obtain residency are now leaving, while MIQ spaces sit vacant and the government is paying migrants to come into the country to deal with a skills shortage. Read more
If you're going to read the Commerce Commission's market study on supermarkets in New Zealand, I'd suggest starting with the first half of Chapter 6 which explains the difficulties facing any potential new entrant. As far as I'm concerned, evidence on margins and such really don't mean much unless there are substantial restrictions against new entry. Read more
About a year ago, North American friends started looking to New Zealand as an early glimpse of their own potential post-Covid world. They were still stuck in lockdowns; we had emerged from ours. Read more