Eric is the Chief Economist at The New Zealand Initiative. With the Initiative, he has worked in policy areas ranging from freshwater management to policy for earthquake preparedness, and from local government to technology policy. He has recently focused on policy related to Covid-19 response. He served as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in Economics at the Department of Economics & Finance at the University of Canterbury from 2003 through 2014.
Eric’s columns and commentary appear regularly in New Zealand’s major media outlets, as well as on his blog, Offsetting Behaviour. He can also be found on Twitter at @ericcrampton .
Submission: Transforming Recycling - Container Return Scheme (2022)
Submission: Wellington Council on the Draft Economic Wellbeing Strategy (2022)
Submission: Managing exotic afforestation incentives (2022)
Submission: The market study into residential building supplies preliminary issues paper (2022)
Submission: Issues raised at the consultation conference on the Commission's market study into the retail grocery sector draft report (2021)
Submission: Resource management enabling housing supply and other matters Amendment Bill (2021)
Submission: Covid-19 public health response Amendment Bill (no 2) (2021)
Research Note: Safer arrivals and the path to 2022 (2021)
Submission: The market study into the retail grocery sector draft report (2021)
Fording the rapids: Charting a course to fresher water (2021)
Submission: Proposals for a smokefree Aotearoa 2025 action plan (2021)
Submission: Inquiry into congestion pricing in Auckland (2021)
Policy Point: A risky place to do business (2021)
Roadmap for Recovery: Briefing to the Incoming Government (2020)
Submission: Smokefree environments and regulated products Act 1990: Proposals for regulations (2021)
Democracy in the Dark (2020)
Research Note: Safe Arrivals (2020)
Policy Point: Open for minds: export education and recovery (2020)
Submission: Smokefree environments and regulated products (vaping) Amendment Bill (2020)
Policy Point: Stay on Target (2020)
Research Note: Effective Treatment: Public policy prescription for a pandemic (2020)
Policy Point: Time to process (2020)
Scroll down to read the rest of Eric's work.
Phone: +64 4 499 0790
It is hardly the highest-profile job in the country, but it is one of the more important ones. The members of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand set the country’s monetary policy. Read more
It’s the standard critique of local government, and it’s often right. Councillors and mayors are more interested in spending a lot of money on flashy convention centres than on maintaining the pipes. Read more
What passes for economics in Wellington has seemed increasingly out of step with the academic consensus. Ideas long dismissed by academic economists as mad or harmful become trendy in Wellington circles. Read more
A dark part of me hopes the government’s employment insurance scheme is enacted exactly as proposed. It will be terrible. Read more
This submission in response to the Commerce Commission’s (Commission) Residential Building Supplies Market Study Preliminary Issues Paperi is made by The New Zealand Initiative (the Initiative), a think tank supported primarily by major New Zealand businesses. In combination, our members employ more than 150,000 people. Read more
Toward the end of the classic Vietnam war film Apocalypse Now, Captain Willard finally found the object of his quest: the mad Colonel Kurtz. Kurtz asked whether Willard agreed with their superiors who believed that Kurtz’s methods were unsound. Read more
Research by financial journalist Bernard Hickey is showing that the wealth gap in New Zealand has widened during the pandemic. Business net worth has increased by more than $300 billion but those businesses that are struggling are being squeezed even further. Read more
Prudence is a virtue. Aristotle considered it among the nine most important. Read more
February weather forecasting on the Canadian prairies was relatively simple. Southerlies brought warmth. Read more
Dear Commerce Commission. Why can’t I parallel import a house, one piece at a time? Read more
Eric Crampton joins MagicTalk’s Wilhelmina Shrimpton to weigh up the ACT Party’s tax policy. The pair discuss the high cost of living, bracket creep, and the types of poor-value government spending that could be abolished to allow tax cuts. Read more
“We made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.” It’s a cliché from old gangster movies. Either side can just walk away from normal business negotiations if a deal is not in their mutual interest. Read more
Festivus comes but once a year – December 23rd. Observants of the holiday popularised in a decades-old episode of Seinfeld raise the aluminium pole of celebration and air their grievances. Read more
Eric Crampton discusses supermarkets, antitrust and how government and council rules have made it hard for new entrants to join the NZ market on Radio NZ Nights, hosted by Bryan Crump.
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Distance was supposed to be dead. The first dot-com boom promised an end to distance’s tyranny. Read more