Eric is the Chief Economist at The New Zealand Initiative. With the Initiative, he has worked in policy areas ranging from freshwater management to policy for earthquake preparedness, and from local government to technology policy. He has recently focused on policy related to Covid-19 response. He served as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in Economics at the Department of Economics & Finance at the University of Canterbury from 2003 through 2014.
Eric’s columns and commentary appear regularly in New Zealand’s major media outlets, as well as on his blog, Offsetting Behaviour. He can also be found on Twitter at @ericcrampton.
Phone: +64 4 499 0790
There’s a weird art to commissioned cost-benefit assessments. Even when it seems like a report’s funder really wanted a particular result and even if the final number seems absurd, the report can still be valuable. Read more
In this episode, Eric and Nick talk to Peter Nunns and Graham Campbell from New Zealand Infrastructure Commission, Te Waihanga. They discuss council debt and infrastructure funding and financing. Read more
Adam Smith warned that meetings of people of the same trade quickly turn into conspiracies against the public or contrivances to raise prices. He neglected to mention the benefits of meetings of people from vastly different trades. Read more
The way the government tries to protect us against earthquake risks, and to protect heritage buildings against change, share a common problem. Government agencies have a very difficult time generating the information necessary for making good decisions in both cases. Read more
American supply-side conservatives got one big thing right two decades ago, but they got a bigger thing wrong. And it’s relevant to current debates about our Coalition Government’s proposed tax cuts. Read more
Dr Eric Crampt on talks to Corin Dann on RNZ about the need for state spending to reduce to pre-Covid levels. Listen below. Read more
We all have our strange little hobbies. I keep an eye out for mentions of a shonky old estimate on the social cost of alcohol. Read more
Listen to Dr Eric Crampton discuss the Government's tax needs and plans:
Eric Crampton Newstalk ZB Read more
Initiative Chief Economist Eric Crampton Talks Tax Cuts & Uber vs Taxis with Sean Plunket.
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It isn’t that there are never $20 notes lying on the footpath, it’s that when markets are working well, there are strong incentives to find and pick them up. A $20 note shouldn’t have to wait very long before being grabbed. Read more
The Sen̓áḵw development near downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, won’t quite be a city within the city. But it will be close. Read more
Dr Eric Crampton joins Emile Donovan on RNZ to talk about rates and explore alternative options. Listen below. Read more
The Housing Theory of Everything has one of those wonderful self-explanatory titles. A good title matters. Read more
1.1 This submission on the Misuse of Drugs (Pseudoephedrine) Amendment Bill[1] is made by The New Zealand Initiative (the Initiative), a Wellington-based think tank supported primarily by major New Zealand businesses. In combination, our members employ more than 150,000 people. Read more
Transport historian Dr André Brett has suggested that Wellington be renamed Lowerer Hutt, perhaps to help avoid confusion within the region. Economists Matthew Maltman and Ryan Greenaway-McGrevy have been looking at Lower Hutt’s housing boom. Read more