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 .
Submission: Transforming Recycling - Container Return Scheme (2022)
Submission: Wellington Council on the Draft Economic Wellbeing Strategy (2022)
Submission: Managing exotic afforestation incentives (2022)
Submission: The market study into residential building supplies preliminary issues paper (2022)
Submission: Issues raised at the consultation conference on the Commission's market study into the retail grocery sector draft report (2021)
Submission: Resource management enabling housing supply and other matters Amendment Bill (2021)
Submission: Covid-19 public health response Amendment Bill (no 2) (2021)
Research Note: Safer arrivals and the path to 2022 (2021)
Submission: The market study into the retail grocery sector draft report (2021)
Fording the rapids: Charting a course to fresher water (2021)
Submission: Proposals for a smokefree Aotearoa 2025 action plan (2021)
Submission: Inquiry into congestion pricing in Auckland (2021)
Policy Point: A risky place to do business (2021)
Roadmap for Recovery: Briefing to the Incoming Government (2020)
Submission: Smokefree environments and regulated products Act 1990: Proposals for regulations (2021)
Democracy in the Dark (2020)
Research Note: Safe Arrivals (2020)
Policy Point: Open for minds: export education and recovery (2020)
Submission: Smokefree environments and regulated products (vaping) Amendment Bill (2020)
Policy Point: Stay on Target (2020)
Research Note: Effective Treatment: Public policy prescription for a pandemic (2020)
Policy Point: Time to process (2020)
Scroll down to read the rest of Eric's work.
Phone: +64 4 499 0790
Over at the Christchurch Press, I went through the current controversies about an Ashburton water bottling plant. New Zealand allocates water drawing rights through a consenting system. Read more
A few years ago, The New Republic held a contest for most boring news headline. “A Worthwhile Canadian Initiative” won. Read more
If you don't know what your inputs really cost, it's hard to know the real value of your company's product. Whether you build cars or make milk powder, that can cause problems. When Germany reunified after the fall of the Berlin wall, legend has it that a West German auto executive emerged weeping from a Trabant car plant. Read more
A funny thing happened in the last round of American minimum wage increases. The number of people in unpaid internships went up. Read more
A funny thing happened in the last round of American minimum wage increases. The number of people in unpaid internships went up. Read more
In principle, a Universal Basic Income, as floated by the NZ Labour Party, sounds great. It’s once you start looking harder at implementation that things quickly become, well, messy, writes Eric Crampton. Read more
It is hard to put a number on some things – like how many refugees the government should admit. If you asked how many software engineers the government should let into the country per year, I would have a hard time coming up with an answer. Read more
More than a few folks have emailed me the latest from The Guardian on the coming intergenerational war. Youth incomes have been going backwards in too many countries. Read more
Sometimes, the supermarket sticker price is just there to make the sale price look better. Anchoring expectations matters. Read more
Our Head of Research, Dr Eric Crampton, joins Annie Newman, Bill Rosenberg and Susan Guthrie on Waatea 5th Estate to discuss the minimum wage and living wage. Read more
Our Head of Research, Dr Eric Crampton, joins Professor Tim Hazledine and Laila Harré as they discuss how high the minimum wage ought to be. Read more
Have I really been wrong about gangs all this time? I’d thought their main line of work was almost legitimate. Read more
Last week’s column reckoned that Sir Robert Jones’s economic impact assessment tallying the merits of a five kilometre high statue of Gareth Morgan was sounder than rather a few economic impact assessments. The case for the statue is especially strong where the construction costs would be borne by the population of North Korea. Read more
Eight reasons why a Trump presidency may not be as bad as you imagine. Don’t get me wrong: it could, and likely will, still all go horribly, horribly wrong. Read more
You can sell just about anything with the right economic impact report. Just consider Sir Robert Jones’s presumably tongue-in-cheek proposal for a magnificent new statue on The Terrace. Read more