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
We all know we need to be prepared if we’re going to Australia. Brisbane has spiders the size of dinner plates. Read more
In this episode, Eric and Michael discuss Australia's proposed law to ban social media for under-16s, examining how age verification would likely require government ID and create serious privacy risks as platforms would need to store this sensitive data. While acknowledging concerns about social media's impact on young people, they argue the Australian approach could enable government surveillance, compromise online anonymity, and create technical challenges that would either be easily circumvented or impose heavy costs on legitimate users. Read more
Dr Eric Crampton talked to Paul Brennan on Reality Check Radio about Australia's teen social media ban concept. The NZ Government are considering the same measure, Eric dives in and examines the real costs. Read more
Getting from Auckland to Cathedral Cove means a two-and-a-half-hour drive over 178 kilometres, the last third of which is a windy path through the Coromandel. Inland Revenue sets a $1.04 per kilometre mileage rate for business travel – a figure meant to include wear and tear on your vehicle as well as running costs. Read more
The Ch'íyáqtel First Nation near Chilliwack, British Columbia, is tiny. The Band counts 731 members, some 58% of which live on Ch'íyáqtel lands. Read more
Emile Donovan spoke to Dr Eric Crampton on his show RNZ Nights about prediction markets and whether they are more accurate than polling. Listen below. Read more
In this episode, Eric talks to Dylan Mordaunt, a clinician and visiting fellow at Victoria University, about healthcare policy and regulation in New Zealand, sparked by a recent Niskanen Centre report highlighting how supply constraints affect healthcare delivery. They explore various regulatory barriers affecting medical practitioners, scope of practice limitations, and access to medicines, while discussing how to balance public safety with increasing healthcare accessibility and capacity. Read more
If you think you understand something pretty well, here’s a fun exercise. Explain in detail how the thing works, including how one part causes another part to move. Read more
Sean Plunket talks to Dr Eric Crampton on The Platform about whether social media bans for kids actuallly work. Watch below. Read more
Imagine that someone invents a new cigarette that produces even more tar and harmful chemicals. Nobody is quite sure how much worse it is than a standard cigarette. Read more
I can’t pretend that dinnertime on the 21st of October was anywhere near as exciting as dinnertime on the 3rd of November. On the evening of Sunday the 3rd, I expect most of us were tuned into the final overs of the third cricket test, hoping that New Zealand would be the first to sweep a full test series in India. Read more
New Zealand’s poor productivity statistics are less puzzling if you understand the country’s land use planning and consenting system. It isn’t much of an exaggeration that, for many activities, anyone’s “no” can block anyone else from doing anything. Read more
If next week’s American Presidential election is a coin toss, that coin looks increasingly weighted toward Trump. In early October, the race was much closer to a fair coin toss. Read more
1. Introduction and Summary 1.1 This submission is made by The New Zealand Initiative (the Initiative) in response to the Government's consultation document "Have your say on Work Health and Safety," released in June 2024. Read more
Paul Brennan talks to Dr Eric Crampton on Reality Check Radio about New Zealand’s alarming drop in birth rates, and why we ranked dead last in infrastructure delivery in a global survey. Listen below. Read more