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
Our Head of Research, Dr Eric Crampton, talks to Radio New Zealand about sugar taxes, and why we should value individual freedom and personal responsibility. Read more
Our Head of Research, Dr Eric Crampton, talks to Katie Bradford from One News following a poll showing that a majority of New Zealanders currently support a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages. CLICK HERE to view the video. Read more
Over at the Christchurch Press, I went through the current controversies about an Ashburton water bottling plant. New Zealand allocates water drawing rights through a consenting system. Read more
A few years ago, The New Republic held a contest for most boring news headline. “A Worthwhile Canadian Initiative” won. Read more
If you don't know what your inputs really cost, it's hard to know the real value of your company's product. Whether you build cars or make milk powder, that can cause problems. When Germany reunified after the fall of the Berlin wall, legend has it that a West German auto executive emerged weeping from a Trabant car plant. Read more
A funny thing happened in the last round of American minimum wage increases. The number of people in unpaid internships went up. Read more
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