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
Two weeks ago, I suggested a treaty ending international film subsidies. Government funding for local cultural content can be defensible. Read more
New medicines are slow to be authorised for the New Zealand market. Even if a medicine has already been approved by many other trustworthy overseas regulators like those in Canada, the UK, Australia, and the EU, Medsafe can take a very long time to evaluate a medicine. Read more
Dr Eric Crampton talked to Wallace Chapman on RNZ's show The Panel about Treasury's initial decision to ban civil society groups like the New Zealand Initiative from the 2025 budget lockup. Dr Crampton explained how Treasury had reversed their decision following legal threats and media backlash, highlighting the importance of maintaining access for organisations that provide independent analysis of budget announcements. Read more
1. INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 1.1 This submission on the Medicines Amendment Bill is made by The New Zealand Initiative (the Initiative), a Wellington-based think tank supported primarily by major New Zealand businesses. Read more
Dr Eric Crampton talked to Matt Heath and Tyler Adams on Newstalk ZB about the proposed social media ban for under sixteens in New Zealand. Dr Crampton discussed the mixed evidence on social media harms, the benefits for young people, and explained why implementing such a ban would inevitably create problematic trade-offs between ease of circumvention, adult user convenience, and online privacy. Read more
Dr Eric Crampton talked to Sean Plunket on The Platform about the proposed social media ban for under-16s in Australia and similar potential legislation in New Zealand. Dr Crampton discussed the practical challenges of implementing such bans, explaining the "trilemma" of any potential implementation system having at least one undesirable property: either being easy for kids to circumvent, burdensome for adult users, or ending internet privacy. Read more
New Zealand generally likes arms control treaties. I have a modest proposal for a disarmament treaty. Read more
Government economists sometimes try to fight the last war rather than the one they’re in. It’s understandable. Read more
Dr Eric Crampton spoke to Heather du Plessis-Allan on Newstalk ZB about New Zealand's structural deficit, citing IMF figures that show it as "about the worst in the OECD" compared to GDP. He identified government spending growth to "well north of 30% of GDP" as the main issue and suggested potential cuts to pension programmes, health spending, and student loan subsidies. Read more
Dr Eric Crampton spoke to RNZ about reforming New Zealand's emissions credit system, arguing that payouts should be tied to international competitors' emissions rather than penalising local companies for reducing their carbon footprint. Listen below. Read more
1. INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 1.1 This submission on the Land Transport Management (Time-of-Use Charging) Amendment Bill is made by The New Zealand Initiative (the Initiative), a Wellington-based think tank supported primarily by major New Zealand businesses. Read more
Come the next pandemic, we are going to be in the same stupid mess that we were in during the last one. Trusted pharmaceutical regulators overseas, like those in Australia, Canada, Europe, and the UK, will have given provisional approvals for vaccines that are safe. Read more
In this episode, Eric discusses credit card interchange fees with NERA's James Mellsop, who argues that the Commerce Commission's proposed regulation capping these fees could harm competition and innovation despite aiming to benefit consumers. They express concern that the Commission's narrow focus on allocative efficiency overlooks the dynamic benefits of interchange fees in financing innovation and new market entrants, potentially undermining the Commission's own goals of increasing competition in the banking sector. Read more
There’s a fragility to rules-based orders that has been around for as long as those orders have. So long as people generally agree that it is good to be bound by the rules, and that trying to change the rules is better than ignoring or breaking them, a rules-based order can persist. Read more
Many economists make international trade seem more complicated than it needs to be. Stephen Landsburg had a simple way of explaining it all. Read more