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
Keeping kids off social media sounds simple. Tech whizzes can achieve wonders. Read more
Last year, Canadian First Nations leaders came to Tuahiwi marae, just north of Christchurch, for the third hui-ā-motu. They explained how they have been using their self-governing autonomy, which sounds a lot like rangatiratanga, to build economic self-determination. Read more
Not long ago, doing anything on Canada’s Indian Reserves was almost as hard as doing anything on whenua Māori. Here, the roughly six percent of the country held under Māori land tenure is beset by regulatory difficulty far worse than that bedevilling the rest of New Zealand. Read more
New Zealand has a bad habit of trying to do everything everywhere all at once. It means national-level policy takes giant swings. Read more
Wellington (Wednesday, 1 October 2025) – Canadian First Nations are helping tackle Canada’s housing crisis through council-like authority over their own land. A new report highlights this proven Canadian turnaround success story and draws lessons for New Zealand. Read more
Canadian First Nations are helping tackle Canada’s housing crisis through council-like authority over their own land. Our new report highlights this proven Canadian turnaround success story and draws lessons for New Zealand. Read more
In this episode, Oliver talks to Eric Crampton, the New Zealand Initiative's chief economist, about his latest report Building Nations examining Canadian First Nations' experiences with autonomous land development and what New Zealand might learn from them. They discuss how Canadian reserves transformed from heavily regulated, impoverished areas into thriving self-governing communities that are now solving urban housing crises through major development projects like the Squamish Nation's apartment towers in downtown Vancouver. Read more
Dr Eric Crampton talked to Ryan Bridge on Newstalk ZB about the Reserve Bank's recent self-review, which found the bank was too slow to raise interest rates after COVID-19. He argued the Reserve Bank should have recognised earlier that it was dealing with a supply shock rather than a demand problem, noting that excessive money printing in response to COVID's economic disruption drove inflation to 7.3% and required painful interest rate hikes to bring it back under control. Read more
Dr Eric Crampton talked to Charlotte Cook on RNZ about US President Donald Trump's repeated threat to impose 100% tariffs on foreign films. He explained that such tariffs would be practically impossible to implement on digital services like films, but suggested the threat could provide an opportunity for countries like New Zealand to negotiate an international agreement to scale back film production subsidies. Listen below. Read more
A lot of changes are coming in competition policy. Last week, the government announced a package of reforms that, overall, set the Commerce Commission on a more activist tack. Read more
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has one big job when it comes to monetary policy. That job is defined in its Remit – the contract that it has with the government. Read more
Wellington (Monday, 22 September 2026) - The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has been unfairly scapegoated for the current recession when it was simply doing its job of bringing inflation under control, according to new research from The New Zealand Initiative. The research note, Monetary Policy Without Mates, reveals that while the RBNZ fought to tame inflation that peaked at nearly 8%, the government's fiscal policy worked against these efforts – forcing interest rates to stay higher for longer. Read more
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has been unfairly scapegoated for the current recession when it was simply doing its job of bringing inflation under control. The research note, Monetary Policy Without Mates, reveals that while the RBNZ fought to tame inflation that peaked at nearly 8%, the government's fiscal policy worked against these efforts – forcing interest rates to stay higher for longer. Read more
They seem unable to help themselves. And it’s probably our fault. Read more
Dr Eric Crampton told Kerre Woodham on Newstalk ZB that New Zealand’s 0.9% economic contraction reflects the Reserve Bank “going incredibly overboard” in 2020–21 and losing credibility on inflation, making today’s correction unavoidable. He criticised government claims of restraint, noting budgets remain “incredibly stimulatory” with “massive structural deficits,” and argued that if spending had returned to 2019 wellbeing-budget levels, the Bank would have had far more room to cut interest rates. Read more