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
Fertility rates have been dropping for a very long time, but the recent plunge is precipitous. Neil Johnson, Professor of Obstetrics & Gynaecology at Flinders University, took us through the numbers at a panel session for Fertility Counts Aotearoa at Parliament last week. Read more
BusinessDesk’s Pattrick Smellie had the best synopsis of New Zealand First’s announcement on foreign direct investment this weekend: “it was less important for what it said than for the fact that Peters said it.” The Overseas Investment Act has placed New Zealand among the developed world’s least hospitable climates for foreign investment. Other countries recognise investment as a benefit to be sought. Read more
I am kicking myself that we at the Initiative had not read Federated Farmers’ submission to the Banking inquiry before drafting our own. Their submission exhibits a creativity that I had thought New Zealand had lost decades ago – sometime around 1987, if we had to pin a date on it. Read more
On Newstalk ZB, Mike Hosking discussed Dr Eric Crampton's latest Newsroom column about proposed legislation in New Zealand that would force mediation between big tech companies and local media, potentially leading to financial compensation for news content. The column highlights Google's threat to drop services in response, and references similar experiences in Canada, suggesting the legislation may not achieve its intended goals and could have negative consequences. Read more
Dr Eric Crampton talked to Sean Plunket on The Platform discussing the challenges facing New Zealand's media landscape, including TVNZ's financial woes and Google's threat to stop linking to local news sites in response to proposed legislation. He expresses concern about the potential impact on public access to information and civic knowledge, while also noting that democracy has continued to function despite recent changes in the media sector. Read more
New Zealand moves inexorably from the ‘faff around’ to the ‘find out’ phase of the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill process. On Friday, Google’s New Zealand blog noted that if the bill becomes law, Google would be “forced to stop linking to news content on Google Search, Google News, or Discover surfaces in New Zealand and discontinue our current commercial agreements and ecosystem support with New Zealand news publishers.” Google described the Bill as setting a ‘link tax’. Read more
They say you can’t beat Wellington on a good day but in one important respect, ‘they’ are wrong. Christchurch will have Wellington beat, hands-down, unless Christchurch Council manages to screw this up. Read more
Every three years, Inland Revenue undertakes a long-term insights briefing on the tax system. This year’s could spark a shift away from tedious and fruitless discussions of Capital Gains Taxes. Read more
Policies and regulations, most of the time, are a bit of a mess. Even if policies made sense when first conceived, sludge accumulates over time. Read more
1.1 This submission in response to the Finance and Expenditure Committee (FEC) Inquiry into Banking Competition (the Inquiry)1 is made by The New Zealand Initiative (the Initiative), a think tank supported primarily by major New Zealand businesses. In combination, our members employ more than 150,000 people. Read more
Good news! As of 11 September, it has been legal to advertise Jynneos, the monkeypox vaccine, to communities at risk for monkeypox. Read more
Government sometimes cannot stop itself from providing bailouts when risk-taking goes wrong. This kind of ‘free’ insurance policy leads to no end of bad outcomes. Read more
1.1 This submission on the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Amendment Bill (No 2) is made by The New Zealand Initiative, a think tank supported primarily by chief executives of major New Zealand businesses. The Initiative undertakes research to contribute to the development of sound public policies in New Zealand to help create a competitive, open and dynamic economy and a free, prosperous, fair, and cohesive society. Read more
In this episode, Eric and Ben Hamlin, Barrister at Clifton Chambers, explore how government policies and regulations can unintentionally stifle competition in New Zealand, affecting everything from healthcare to supermarkets. They discuss the challenges posed by current laws, particularly the 'Crown exception' in competition law, and propose reforms aimed at creating a more competitive economy, including regular reviews of competition restrictions and greater justification for government-imposed market limitations. Read more
On August 15, we hosted our second The Health Innovators’ Summit. This was a day event that brought together politicians, members of The New Zealand Initiative, professional health associations, and senior journalists to learn about innovative solutions for better healthcare in New Zealand. Read more
