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
A funny thing happened in the last round of American minimum wage increases. The number of people in unpaid internships went up. Read more
In principle, a Universal Basic Income, as floated by the NZ Labour Party, sounds great. It’s once you start looking harder at implementation that things quickly become, well, messy, writes Eric Crampton. Read more
It is hard to put a number on some things – like how many refugees the government should admit. If you asked how many software engineers the government should let into the country per year, I would have a hard time coming up with an answer. Read more
More than a few folks have emailed me the latest from The Guardian on the coming intergenerational war. Youth incomes have been going backwards in too many countries. Read more
Sometimes, the supermarket sticker price is just there to make the sale price look better. Anchoring expectations matters. Read more
Our Head of Research, Dr Eric Crampton, joins Annie Newman, Bill Rosenberg and Susan Guthrie on Waatea 5th Estate to discuss the minimum wage and living wage. Read more
Our Head of Research, Dr Eric Crampton, joins Professor Tim Hazledine and Laila Harré as they discuss how high the minimum wage ought to be. Read more
Have I really been wrong about gangs all this time? I’d thought their main line of work was almost legitimate. Read more
Last week’s column reckoned that Sir Robert Jones’s economic impact assessment tallying the merits of a five kilometre high statue of Gareth Morgan was sounder than rather a few economic impact assessments. The case for the statue is especially strong where the construction costs would be borne by the population of North Korea. Read more
Eight reasons why a Trump presidency may not be as bad as you imagine. Don’t get me wrong: it could, and likely will, still all go horribly, horribly wrong. Read more
You can sell just about anything with the right economic impact report. Just consider Sir Robert Jones’s presumably tongue-in-cheek proposal for a magnificent new statue on The Terrace. Read more
Last week, the Salvation Army released its State of the Nation Report. And, contrary to the usual story, the Salvation Army’s report generally paints a picture of improving outcomes. Read more
Blaming the thug for punching you is only one way of looking at things. After all, if a thug’s punch flies in the forest and your face is not there to meet it, there really is no problem at all. Read more
Radio New Zealand question whether the Christchurch earthquake counts as negative productivity. Our Head of Research, Dr Eric Cramption answers their question, from 1"35'. Read more
If copyright changes are the dead rat we have to eat with our otherwise-tasty Trans-Pacific Partnership meal,* it is worth knowing a bit more about that rat. To do that, we have to go back to first principles on copyright and its purpose. Read more