Eric Crampton

Guest writer

Dr. Eric Crampton is chief economist at the New Zealand Initiative in Wellington. From 2003 through 2014, he served as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer with the Department of Economics at the University of Canterbury. He blogs at Offsetting Behaviour.

An Aldi supermarket in Southend on Sea, England (Photo: John Keeble/Getty Images)

2nd August, 2021

Why it’s so hard to launch a new supermarket in New Zealand

Forget the pie in the sky 'KiwiShop' idea – we need to make it easier for a overseas player to enter our grocery market.

By Eric Crampton

(Photo: Getty Images)

A crisis budget. A debt budget. And a budget on which our recovery depends

What the does the government need to fund to get the economy moving again?

By Eric Crampton

Photo: Getty Images

12th March, 2020

How well is a school really performing? We built a lab to find out

We wanted to find out how schools were doing, irrespective of the privilege of their students.

By Eric Crampton

Is this the solution to future fiscal holes? (image: Toby Manhire)

22nd August, 2019

The parliamentary budget office should be just the beginning

The government’s plan to avoid another ‘fiscal hole’ fiasco has an unlikely fan: the chief economist of the corporate think tank New Zealand Initiative

By Eric Crampton

Treasury secretary Gabriel Makhlouf. Image: Radio NZ/ Rebekah Parsons-King

The rot at treasury started years ago

Treasury has been haemorrhaging talented economists for years and the budget leaks were just the tip of the iceberg for a department in crisis, writes Eric Crampton of The New Zealand Initiative.

By Eric Crampton

NZ First MP Shane Jones. Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images

18th April, 2019

How an OIA laid bare the pork barrel shambles that is Shane Jones’ provincial growth fund

Economist Eric Crampton on the primary school maths and abuse of the official information act underpinning Shane Jones' provincial growth fund.

By Eric Crampton

How to solve housing affordability in New Zealand? Look to the United States

30th June, 2018

How to solve housing affordability in New Zealand? Look to the United States

If New Zealand is to crack the problems of unaffordable housing, the government must look seriously at how the better parts of America finance infrastructure, argues Eric Crampton.

By Eric Crampton

Houses for sale and sold in central Auckland suburbs (Photo by Fiona Goodall/Getty Images)

18th April, 2018

Why the ban on foreign homebuyers is so very dumb

On Tuesday, economist Eric Crampton argued prohibiting foreign buyers will do nothing to alleviate the housing crisis. Today, he lays out all the other reasons why the ban makes no sense.

By Eric Crampton

(Photo: Getty Images).

17th April, 2018

The foreign buyer ban is an abomination. Bad in principle, worse in practice

The prohibition on foreign property buyers is the worst kind of populist, fear-based policy-making, argues economist Eric Crampton.

By Eric Crampton

Yes we know economists do more than put numbers in calculators but it will have to do

27th March, 2018

Give us our red socks, and $212m public money, for the 2021 Economist’s Cup

Eric Crampton lays out a compelling argument for an international economists' regatta that will pump cash into the NZ economy.

By Eric Crampton