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
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
Central bank independence matters. The grand bargain struck between governments and their central banks, coming out of the turmoil of the 1970s, and led by New Zealand in the late 1980s, was simple. Read more
Central bank independence in monetary policy was hard fought and desperately needed. The deal was simple. Read more
It isn’t that a New Zealand drug approval agency is a bad idea per se. It’s rather that the one we have might not be worth having. Read more
If you’ve ever had concerns about economists’ ethical commitments, relax. It could be worse. Read more
Legislation banning smoking and vaping in cars with children will take effect on Sunday. At the Auckland boundary, police will not only be checking exit papers, but also whether cars comply with the new smokefree regulations. Read more