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
Labour really should rule out any chance of the Green Party’s proposed wealth tax being part of any coalition agreement. Just consider some of the numbers on what it would do for hurdle rates for wealthy investors in the top income tax bracket. Read more
The primary point of collecting blood plasma is to meet the medical and therapeutic needs of patients. We collect blood and plasma in order to ensure that we can preserve and promote the health of current and future patients. Read more
Wellington (Thursday, 15 June 2023) – Without more donors, the New Zealand Blood Service warns we will rely more heavily on imported plasma products. They’re right. Read more
Nights regular and chief economist with The New Zealand Initiative, Eric Crampton, talks to Mark about the Wellington rates review, and some recent results in urban economics. Read more
Questions are being raised over whether the Green Party's proposed tax overhaul is needed. It's pledging to lift the top tax rate to 45%, corporate taxes to 33%, and slash taxes for earners below $120,000. Read more
Wellington has a lot of problems. No one thing will fix all of them. But the current review of council ratings policy could fix an important problem and provide an example for other urban councils. Read more
It may be too early to read too much into the Government's higher than expected deficit. Latest Treasury figures show the Government has recorded a $7 billion deficit for the ten months to April. Read more
Housing crisis makes growth all about ‘up-and-out’ not ‘up-or-out’ If you want affordable housing, it isn’t a choice between whether people should be able to build townhouses and apartments downtown or subdivisions at the city’s fringes. Cities need to be able to grow in all directions, guided by where people want to live and the cost of providing infrastructure. Read more
Wallace Chapman and panellists Sue Bradford and Dean Hall are joined by the Initiative's Dr Eric Crampton to discuss the superannuation age. Read more
After spending an embarrassing amount of time trying to figure out whether paying NZ Steel an enormous amount of money to install a new electric furnace made any kind of sense, I have finally come to a conclusion. If the subsidy does make sense, it would indicate severe problems in how industrial allocations have been handled. Read more
If a lot of the government’s health policy people started looking warmly at homeopathy and other kinds of medical pseudoscience and woo, we’d all recognise that as a problem, right? Maybe we would want to test our intuitions about it. Read more
Join us on a fascinating journey, chugging through the intricate past, present, and future of rail transport in New Zealand. Chief economist Eric Crampton is once again joined by Client Service Lead for Milestone Solutions, Scott Wilson, to dig deep into the ownership structures and incentives that have guided the development of New Zealand's rail system. Read more
Budget 2023 included a 20 per cent rebate for game development studios that meet a minimum $250,000 expenditure threshold per year. Individual studios will be able to receive up to $3 million per year in rebate funding, and the $160m scheme will be backdated to April 1, 2023. Read more
Meet the new public health. Same as the old public health. Read more
