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
America got a little bit crazier this week. I’m not talking about the Ferguson riots, round two, which make me ever-grateful that New Zealand maintains an unarmed constabulary. Read more
A spending spree after an unexpected Christmas bonus is something we can all understand. Maybe it isn’t the best way of planning your finances, but it isn’t going to really do any harm. Read more
In 2009, I wrote a piece on the social costs of drugs for NORML; it appeared in their NORML News magazine. The police later sought to have several issues of NORML News deemed Objectionable; some articles described hashish production methods. Read more
When Gordon Tullock submitted his article, The Welfare Costs of Tariffs, Monopoly and Theft, to the top journal in economics, The American Economic Review, John Gurley, then Editor, rejected it, saying “You will no doubt note that the referee neglects your point regarding the amount of real resources devoted to establishing, promoting, destroying monopolises, etc. However, I have noted it and, while I think it is certainly valid, it does not appear significant (as a theoretical contribution).” Tullock’s contribution was eventually published in 1967 in the rather less prestigious Western Economic Journal. Read more
We moved to New Zealand over a decade ago because I reckoned it the world’s least mad country: the Outside of the Asylum. It tops my informal ranking on this important metric. Read more
Economist Jean Tirole’s Nobel win on Monday is now perhaps old news. Marginal Revolution and the National Business Review have covered the theoretical work in industrial organisation and game theory that won Tirole the prize. Read more
Earthquakes are bad enough on their own but policy can always make them worse. Regulatory and planning policy in the lead-up to the February 2011 earthquake and in the subsequent response period led to needless deaths, too few options for those whose homes were damaged, a confusopoly in insurance, and an endlessly drawn out quest for the perfect downtown plan. Read more
Labour’s Sovereign Wealth Fund idea has taken a fair bit of criticism over the past week. The Herald’s editorial page called it “a policy without substance or merit”. Read more
In last week’s Insights, Oliver Hartwich talked about the dismal science but did not note the origins of the term. Economics came to be known as the dismal science because, during the mid-1800s, they worked with the Christian philanthropists of Exeter Hall to call for an end to British accommodation of foreign slavery. Read more
Adam Smith explained how the division of labour is limited by the extent of the market. When we have more people with whom to trade, we can all better specialise in our areas of comparative advantage. Read more