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 you really want to spoil your next pleasant weekend urban walk, here’s a suggestion. Pull out your phone, open homes.co.nz and check the estimated prices of every house along the way. Read more
In this episode of the New Zealand Initiative’s “Freely Speaking” podcast, around the table is executive director Oliver Hartwich, chief economist Eric Crampton, senior economist Matt Burgess and senior fellow Bryce Wilkinson. The team unpacks the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s curious steps into climate change politics and mulls over the central bank's real mandate. Read more
A Joe Biden Presidency looks increasingly likely. But the election was nail-bitingly close. Read more
There is a real chance that Kiwis will miss out on celebrating Christmas at home, because spaces in managed isolation are booking out fast. From now on, everyone traveling back to New Zealand needs a voucher for their two-week quarantine. Read more
It all finally started coming together in the 2021 Budget. The pieces existed before it, but nobody had put them together. Read more
A distinct advantage that the bench sciences and medical sciences have over the social sciences is the ability to run experiments. If a clinician wants to run a trial to check whether a new drug might work, the regulatory hurdles can be substantial, but the trial is certainly possible. Read more
In this week’s New Zealand Initiative podcast, the delayed election is finally decided. But the next term for a Labour majority government will be tough as it wrestles with the consequences of Covid-19. Read more
Eric Crampton talks to Bryan Crump on Radio NZ Nights about the problem with climate policy and how this can be utilised for an effective Covid recovery.
The New Zealand Initiative · Eric Crampton the problem with climate policy Read more
Election campaigns are strange times. There can be a lot of talk about policy, but the real policy apparatus of government goes into limbo. Read more
People are more careful when spending their own money than when spending on behalf of others. This truism is especially relevant in election years, but it applies more broadly. Read more
Our Chief Economist Eric Crampton and Max Rashbrooke joined TVNZ Breakfast to discuss the political parties' economic policies in the lead up to the election. Read more
Wealth taxes are tricky things. Even leaving aside the complications in real-world applications that caused the OECD to recommend against them, wealth taxes have an additional pernicious effect. Read more
If your main source of information on this year’s cannabis referendum were the Say Nope To Dope campaign, it would be pretty easy to imagine marijuana-leaf decorated cannabis shops on every corner. Contrary to that campaign’s full-page ads portraying classic Kiwi dairies turned into garish marijuana stores, the Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill is rather restrictive. Read more
Anybody who watches house prices in Wellington will realise there is a mismatch between demand for homes and supply. Wellington City’s Draft Spatial Plan attempts to address this and the fact that over the next 30 years an extra 80.000 will move to Wellington. Read more
Wellington City’s Draft Spatial Plan, currently out for consultation, asks where the city might find room for another 50-80,000 people over the next thirty years. The challenge is bigger than that. Read more