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
Some conversations are difficult, but critical. This week, Sir Peter Gluckman, the Rt Hon Helen Clark, and Rob Fyfe released a short ‘conversation paper’ called Re-engaging New Zealand with the World. Read more
We all know the analogy about barring gates after the horse has bolted from the barn. It speaks to the futility of doing something too late solve a problem. Read more
On this week’s New Zealand Initiative podcast, Kiwis are set to vote in a referendum to legalise cannabis on September 19. It’s a controversial topic for some, but chief economist Dr Eric Crampton says thinking about cannabis from an economic perspective can help clear up many misconceptions and worries. Read more
It’s been hard to get a decent night’s sleep lately. Stories of the Government’s mismanagement of its quarantine facilities and of the pandemic worsening abroad make for restless nights thinking through safer ways of running those operations. Read more
The average cost of each stay by Kiwis in hotel quarantine here is over $3,000. That cost is being footed by the taxpayer. Read more
New Zealand’s border is its first line of defence against Covid-19. The gross failures exhibited this week cannot be repeated and require a complete reversal of the Government’s border procedures. Read more
On this week’s podcast, reports this week show that New Zealand’s quarantine protocols are not as robust as people thought and the question of what to do about protecting the border from fresh Covid-19 cases is now front and centre. Our chief economist Dr Eric Crampton is outlining a gold standard quarantine system which may need to involve the private sector and require a deep rethink from the Government. Read more
If you try to make a balloon smaller by squeezing it, you should be careful. It tends not to work well. Read more
A government is not a household and reasoning from wrong assumptions can lead to errors. In the last recourse, households cannot print their own currency. Read more
Minister for Climate Change James Shaw this week announced substantial strengthening of New Zealand’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Total emissions will be capped, and carbon prices allowed to increase to help reduce New Zealand’s overall greenhouse gas emissions. Read more
The North Island’s drought is getting rather serious. Auckland’s urban water users have been urged to take shorter showers and only to use dishwashers and clothes washing machines when they’re full; they also have been banned from using water-blasters and garden hoses. Read more
Kiwis are very likely heading into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. But the nature of this downturn harkens back to even earlier business cycles. Read more
One of the ideas to boost the economy in a post-Covid world is to reopen the borders for international students. Eric Crampton tells Ryan Bridge on The AM Show that New Zealand’s relatively safe status gives the tertiary sector a real opportunity to become a more desirable destination for international students. Read more
National Party leader Todd Muller has said that the party will pledge pushing up the age of eligibility progressively from 65 to 67 starting in 2037. Eric Crampton joins The Panel to discuss the implications and the difference this will make to economy. Read more
Lifeboats are tricky things. If they are overburdened, they can tip and spill everyone out. Read more