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
Oliver asked me to make the case for the government’s resource management legislation. It should be read in conjunction with Nick Clark’s critique below. Read more
Wellington has its share of urban legends, most of them false. One of the more popular ones, and a recurring social media trope, claims that America’s Army Corps of Engineers was prepared to build a proper motorway between Wellington and Auckland after the Second World War. Read more
When the Commerce Commission was looking into retail grocery competition, my shop urged the Commission to check on something important. As best we could tell, it would be effectively impossible for a new large-format supermarket chain to open in New Zealand. Read more
Dr Eric Crampton talked to Heather Du Plessis-Allan on Newstalk ZB about the government's $60 million payment to keep Golden Bay Cement's Northland plant open, which he described as a one-off that leaves the underlying problem in the Emissions Trading Scheme unresolved. Dr Crampton argued the scheme's industrial allocations are poorly designed for cement, and that setting them properly, whether by allocating credits that track how carbon intensive production is overseas or by applying a carbon border charge on imports, would remove the need for payments like this one. Read more
The Commerce Commission’s retail grocery competition inquiries always had the wrong focus. If there are enormous profits to be made in groceries, why is nobody else trying to steal them away? Read more
Dr Eric Crampton talked to Mike Hosking on Newstalk ZB about ACT's proposal for innovation trials, which would let the government temporarily suspend regulations to test new technology such as driverless cars, AI and drones. Dr Crampton supported the idea and said New Zealand should go beyond it by also recognising products already approved overseas, pointing to geothermal energy abundance and clinical trial abundance as promising areas to trial. Read more
Dr Eric Crampton talked to Wallace Chapman on RNZ's The Panel, with panellists Anna Dean and Conor English, about Labour's and National's rooftop solar policies. Dr Crampton said both parties are addressing a real financing barrier for households without mortgages, welcomed National's move to make rooftop solar permitted as of right given that regulatory costs have kept New Zealand's solar sector far smaller than Australia's, but cautioned that fiddly bits such as council liens taking priority over mortgages and safety rules for plug-in solar kits need to be got right. Read more
Every July, members of the New Zealand Association of Economists – academics, practitioners, and officials – meet to tell each other what they’ve been working on. Work presented tends to be work-in-progress. Read more
Ten years ago, the NZ Initiative brought a Canadian diplomat to Wellington to explain how Canada let ordinary citizens sponsor refugees. Dean Barry told us that when Canadian communities pledged to support one more refugee, Canada admitted one more. Read more
Choice, competition and open markets provide strong consumer protection. The risk that a customer might shift to a competitor, or to another type of product entirely, provides discipline. Read more
National promises that, if re-elected, it will make KiwiSaver compulsory. The case for compulsion is weaker than most assume. Read more
Small countries in a big world can choose to be nimble or they can choose to be stupid. When it comes to medicines, New Zealand has chosen the second path. Read more
If re-elected, National would make KiwiSaver contributions compulsory from 2028, with employers and employees each contributing 6 percent by 2032. That compulsion requires guardrails, according to a Research Note published today by The New Zealand Initiative Chief Economist Dr Eric Crampton. Read more
Wellington (Thursday, 25 June 2026) – If re-elected, National would make KiwiSaver contributions compulsory from 2028, with employers and employees each contributing 6 percent by 2032. That compulsion requires guardrails, according to a research note published today by The New Zealand Initiative's Chief Economist Dr Eric Crampton. Read more
From 1 July, the start of the new fiscal year, Health New Zealand will stop paying charges to the Crown for the capital that it uses. The Ministry calls it a technical change, with no effect on patient care, infrastructure, or the money available for services. Read more