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
As part of their indepth look at the economy, 95bFM looks at work and income. Possible alternatives to the current welfare system include a universal basic income. Read more
95bFM takes a look at New Zealand's economy and work. Producer Jack Marshall speaks to Aucklander's to get their thoughts on the future of work. Read more
We just don’t know how lucky we are to live in New Zealand. In Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, John Watson decided that the world had gone mad when he found instructions on the side of a packet of toothpicks. Read more
Chief Economist Dr Eric Crampton’s essay, The Outside of the Asylum is a lighthearted take and it makes a serious point. Regardless of election year shenanigans, New Zealand gets a lot of things right that other countries screw up. Read more
The thing I miss least about being in academia is the administration. I don’t mean faculty governance – it is important that academics be involved in that lest everything be taken over by the administrators. Read more
Our executive director at the New Zealand Initiative, Oliver Hartwich, has always had a strange antique monkey’s paw on his desk. I never thought much of it – perhaps a bit creepy but maybe it’s normal for Germans. Read more
For some pundits, elections are magical times in which pundits’ favourite policy hobby-horses transform into the election-winning platform for any party that might listen. I will recommend something a little different for Labour’s incoming leader. Read more
The announcement of a new way of funding urban infrastructure is a bit like announcing a way of clearing that first big slip on the road from Kaikoura to Blenheim. It’s an important and necessary start but it is only a start. Read more
Peter Jackson took a few liberties with Tolkien’s text for the Lord of the Rings films. Most of them, I didn’t like. But one addition I rather liked came at the start. Read more
On his regular Radio New Zealand Nights chat, Dr Eric Crampton discusses the upcoming election and the housing affordability crisis.
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If your main exposure to economics is hearing bank economists talk on morning radio, you might not have the most accurate picture of what economists do. Trying to guess what interest rates might do, or telling stories about the latest moves in the stock market, are not really what economics is about. Read more
The New Zealand Initiative's Chief Economist, Dr Eric Crampton, gives us his review of John Raffensperger and Mark Milke's book "Smart markets for Water Resources". Dr Crampton helped to launch this book at the University of Canterbury on Tuesday 18 July. Read more
The Project covered The Opportunities Party announcement of providing a UBI for 18-23 year olds. The Initiative's Chief Economist Dr Eric Crampton contributed to the debate. Read more
The Commerce Commission now has more powers to investigate competition issues in any area where it thinks there might be a problem. In this week’s National Business Review, the Initiative’s Chair, Roger Partridge, argues this was a bad idea. Read more
New research from a Roy Morgan poll looks into the concerns of Kiwi voters ahead of September's election - and it's housing affordability and inequality. Our Chief Economist Dr Eric Crampton and author Max Rashbrooke were on RadioLive to discuss what can be done to address these issues. Read more