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
Today we offer thanks and praise to those undertaking the most thankless of bureaucratic tasks, forever rolling good policy advice uphill only to watch it roll back down again, seemingly ignored. The country would be far worse in the absence of their labours. Read more
Fair risks? Well, the government won’t be able to say it wasn’t warned about the risks in its fair pay agreements process. Read more
Treasury’s latest stakeholder survey shows that I’m far from the only one worried about declining economic capabilities at the Government’s lead economics advisor. Keeping all the stakeholders happy is an impossible task for any organisation. Read more
Nutrient load is too high in too many New Zealand lakes and rivers. Cleaning up the mess featured prominently in last year’s election. Read more
A sugar tax would generate millions in revenue and save lives, the Prime Minister has been told. The briefing from the Ministry of Health's chief science advisor Dr John Potter was given at Jacinda Ardern's request. Read more
Every two years, Treasury surveys stakeholders about Treasury’s performance. The 2015 survey was up on Treasury’s website about two months after it was completed. Read more
Zombies are hard to kill. Since the classical zombie only really occurs in fiction, accounts vary. Read more
It was the year 2019 and Kiwis had had enough. It was time for legislation to finally protect the interests of those of us stuck in the car leasing market. Read more
People can argue the toss about whether the government should be more or less active in redistributing income but it’s good to have an accurate picture of how much the government already does to reduce inequalities in market income. It’s especially important when the government’s reviewing the tax system. Read more
The Productivity Commission’s report on state sector productivity makes for dismal reading. We all could be enjoying either more of the benefits that government programmes can provide, or lower taxes, or a combination of the two if the state sector had a greater focus on productivity. Read more
Housing Minister Phil Twyford’s address to Infrastructure New Zealand’s Building Nations Symposium last week made it very clear that the current governing coalition is very serious about fixing Auckland’s housing affordability crisis. But the conference also made a few other things clear. Read more
I noted a few problems in Treasury’s staffing in my column a fortnight ago. Among staff whose qualifications are known working as analysts, senior analysts, principal advisors and senior managers, economists are in the minority. Read more
Chief Economist Dr Eric Crampton talks to Larry Williams on Newstalk ZB about Bunnings Warehouse's decision to increase their entry pay to be on par with the living wage.
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Nights' Pundit and the Initiative's Chief Economist, Dr Eric Crampton, discussed localism and subsidiarity. Local Government New Zealand has suggested a renewed localist approach. Read more
Treasury is the heart of economic expertise in government. But it is more than that. Read more