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
Initiative Chief Economist Eric Crampton Talks Tax Cuts & Uber vs Taxis with Sean Plunket.
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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
There was remarkable agreement at the New Zealand Economics Forum last week. Waikato University’s Forum is now an annual feature of the policy calendar, barring Covid interruptions. Read more
In the past, competitors could stop each other's projects through land-use planning. Although some of that has been dialled back, it's coming back in other ways. Read more
Sean Plunket talks to Dr Eric Crampton about his latest Newsroom article about the potential consequences of NZ's Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill. Watch below. Read more
The classic Simpsons “Monorail” episode wasn’t just a cautionary tale about local council megaprojects gone wrong. Monorail salesman Lyle Lanley told the good people of Springfield that he’d “sold monorails to Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook. Read more
It might still be a longshot. But an interesting thread ran through this year’s Waitangi speeches and interviews. Read more
This week, Eric talks to Marko Garlick and Eleanor West, formerly of Generation Zero and now co-ordinating City for People, about the Independent Hearing Panel's process and review of Wellington’s District Plan. They also discuss the research on housing affordability and zoning, and how Houston has avoided letting local objections block wider development. Read more
The way New Zealand’s councils decide whether they have zoned sufficient land for development makes it hard to zone sufficient land for development. The problem is not any specific analysis. Read more
If a council’s zoning plans are wrong, it is hard for anything else to be right. If building enough housing in places where people want to live is forbidden, housing will be scarce, rents and house prices will be too high, and every other ‘wellbeing’ that councils try to deliver will suffer. Read more
It’s funny how times change. In 2019, Labour announced its first ‘wellbeing’ budget. Read more