iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Under US law, companies are supposed to consider fair use before issuing DMCA take-down notices. I wonder whether Kiwibank and its lawyers did that before using the DMCA to censor Buck's fans. The Free Speech Union has asked! And their letter is very fun. fsu.nz/publications...

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The Commerce Act doesn't include break-up as penalty for anything relevant to retail grocery. I tried to imagine the path that could lead to that kind of power in more standard approaches to competition policy. It's at best a stretch. I hate election years. www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3610...

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Expanded on that in today's Post. www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3610...

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I don't know whether NZ First is ramping up its supporters with a policy promise that cannot reasonably be delivered as advertised, or whether they'd push ahead to legislate regardless of consequence. I hate election years. www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3610...

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Oh - yesterday's column's here, for those who don't have the sub [and why would you, if you don't live in New Zealand?].

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Treasury's economic policy performance earned a 'weak' PIR rating. Treasury does not know what proportion of its staff are trained economists. But Treasury does know the gender and ethnicity of 97.5% of its staff. Publishes regular reports on that. Priorities.... www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3610...

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Their annual report is publicly available here for those keen on knowing what they actually get up to. A lot of good work! bright-colobus.files.svdcdn.com/production/a...

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

It does not have 'subsidiaries'. It does have partners. The total dollar value of grants awarded to those partners is tiny. This is from their 2025 Annual Report. Across all of Australia and NZ, $130k USD in grants.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Oh neat. I'm completely in the dark on that file. Relevant to our prior discussion: Ka-boom, conditional on Senate approval.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

This is an experimental project on our side. Fable is the author; I asked it to do the job, provided feedback, tested the thing against other models. There are very likely some remaining errors. Point them out using the feedback form. Fable will triage feedback and update.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

So. Back to the method now. Fable went through all of the planning documents as best it could across the main centres, including precinct maps. It built the maps, and it wrote the entire site. I didn't write a word of it; I provided suggestions for refinement.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

In Hamilton, new supermarkets are permitted downtown, where land prices will be higher. Building one elsewhere requires the applicant to show that suitable land is not available within the business centres.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Christchurch isn't the only place with this kind of rule. It is forbidden to have a new competing supermarket in lots of places. In a country where we hear no end of complaints about cost of living and a lack of competition.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Why is it forbidden to open another supermarket at Homebase? To protect the viability of The Palms mall down the road. Homebase might steal its customers otherwise. This kind of restriction should be a Part 2 Commerce Act offence.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Click on the map and you get the local rule. Here's a Large Format Retail Zone. Supermarkets are permitted in that zone, except at Homebase, where there is a prohibition on any larger supermarkets before 2031.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Maybe we should start with a teaser map, to get a flavour of where we got to before saying how we got there. Here's Christchurch. A 4000 sqm supermarket would be a permitted activity in the green places. Yellow and orange may prove difficult.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Submission on it is here. If you want to know why I oppose it, this is the best place to look. www.nzinitiative.org.nz/reports-and-...

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

I have written probably about a half dozen columns on this, as well as a submission. Privacy considerations are central. None of this is hard to find. Here is one. newsroom.co.nz/2025/10/07/s...

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

I'm probably the last one in this space to notice the problem. But I made it my Newsroom column for the week when I noticed it. Piece is now ungated. My concluding bit snipped below. newsroom.co.nz/2026/06/09/w...

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

DIA categorises its spending. Policy and Related Services is for spending that supports Ministers in policy development. Regulatory Services is for running regulatory services. 2025/26 had $1.2m for policy development. The new allocation is for regulatory services.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

I had a hard time understanding how anyone could spend $6m in 2026/27, rising to $8.5m for 2028/29 and 29/30, just "to develop policy and possible regulatory options to improve children's online safety." I think the spending's going to be on implementation. Minor thread.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

RBNZ splits out inflation by tradeable and non-tradeable components. Restrained monetary policy would have avoided the very sharp spike in the orange non-tradeable line. And effects through exchange rates would have reduced the rise in the blue line.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Here's Treasury's Core Crown Expense Classes. The line at the bottom is my addition. It says 'higher' if spending, as %GDP, was higher in 2025 than 2019. Recall that 2019 was Ardern-Robertson, pre-Covid. Which categories do you think represent 'donor driven austerity'?

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

One thing I love about writing for the Post: they don't strip out links or swap out links for semi-relevant stories from their own website. My piece in today's post: NZ's migration story isn't Europe's. Stop importing narratives that don't apply here. www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3610...

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

I thought a bit of perspective on datacentre water use could be worth the risk. Maximum draw for the new Southland datacentre is comparable to: - 80 hectares of vineyard - 60% of a meat works - a quarter of an average Canterbury irrigation consent - two waterparks - half an apple orchard.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

I'd put some OIAs through on it. NZTA folks literally, on a Sunday, had to start work on a RUC abatement scheme to have something ready for Cabinet on the Monday. newsroom.co.nz/2022/06/20/t...

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

The National Policy Statement on Urban Development gave public transport providers a superpower. Set a mass transit node, and the 200 hectares around it gets upzoned, plausibly creating billions of dollars of development opportunities. Superpowers should be used. www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3609...

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Amazing. And Saskatchewan's law remained in place until 1969.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

The RBNZ is consulting about a proposal that it would not have statutory authority to undertake. I wish I better understood what the RBNZ thinks it is doing. It feels like ongoing governance failures. offsettingbehaviour.blogspot.com/2026/04/acce...

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Extensive @dileepafonseka.bsky.social interview with Alain Bertaud at BusinessDesk. Auckland's improved since Bertaud's last visit. I hope it will be even better on his next visit. businessdesk.co.nz/article/infr...

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

My Herald column in advance of last week's lecture by Alain Bertaud. A snippet here. And ungated at the Initiative's site: www.nzinitiative.org.nz/reports-and-...

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

A couple of years ago, NZ Politics was very worried that reduced excise on heated tobacco (less harmful than combusted) might cost ~$200m over four years. That figure required NZ to be importing about 3,900 kg heated tobacco per month by now. We imported less than that in total in 2025.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

Prediction markets are not a casino. They are a tool for aggregating information, transferring risk, and generating knowledge that cannot otherwise exist. DIA should reconsider its decision. My column in yesterday's Post. www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3609...

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

Auckland's zoning allows roughly a million pie shops, give or take a couple hundred thousand. Look around. Do you see hundreds of thousands of pie shops? Obviously no. Zoning space for a couple million houses doesn't mean that many will be built. Me in The Post. www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3609...

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

Nah, we secretly control everybody by inviting them to have lunch with and talk to a couple dozen CEs and Chairs of our member companies. And even before I joined the Initiative when I lectured at Canterbury, I had Genter give a talk for the econ students on Don Shoup's work. Forward-thinking see.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 02/11/2025

1. I didn't know this; 2. This guy should have been named Ransom E.O. Speedwagon, not Robert.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 02/11/2025

This week's column in The Post gave me an excuse to email Joe Bennett for comment. An illicit cigarette vendor on Facebook Marketplace is purporting to be selling cartons of Bennett's book about bullshitting. "That's wonderful. Double Happiness as double irony." www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3608...

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

My piece in today's Herald goes through one on the lessons from Canada's path to greater First Nations autonomy: starting small and learning as you go can have a lot of merit. www.nzherald.co.nz/business/the...

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

I simply cannot believe that any hapū signing onto the Treaty could have imagined that their descendants would wind up needing to travel to a council office miles away to beg permission to build things on their own land. Canada shows a path to this kind of rangatiratanga.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

The process also built guardrails that help build capacity and accountability.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

Sen̓áḵw is very obviously big-city. Ch'íyáqtel is next door to a town the size of Palmerston North. And a lot of Reserves are far more remote. But really neat things are happening elsewhere. First Nations can buy land near town and bring it under their jurisdiction.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

And it just works. In part, I think, because they started small and learned along the way.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

Other bits are similarly pragmatic. Municipalities are creatures of provinces. Reserves are not. First Nations can adopt provincial rules, like building codes, by reference - if they want. Or choose others.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

I love the pragmatism here. The City has no jurisdiction on-reserve. But they can't provide services unless the Reserve has by-laws around utilities access. So the Nation sets mirror by-laws.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

The BC Supreme Court confirmed that the Reserve is under its own jurisdiction, not subject to City by-laws, and that the City had no duty to consult with NIMBYs about the service agreement.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

Phase 1 of the Sen̓áḵw project is nearing completion. The pictures here are from July. They didn't need Vancouver's permission to build. But they did need to come to an agreement with the City for services. There is no free-ride here.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

In 2002, a little over a century after Squamish land was taken for the railway, it was returned - and came under Squamish jurisdiction. Kitsilano 6, on the map below. Stephanie Wood explains what happened next.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

The First Nations Finance Authority (a bit like NZ's Local Government Finance Authority) lends to First Nations, with debt backed by those Nations' revenues. It's bankable.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

And you can see today how many First Nations have operational Land Codes - opting out of the Indian Act's management and opting into stronger self-governance. It started slowly, but then spread.

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Eric Crampton @ericcrampton.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

It didn't happen everywhere all at once. I think critical to success here was that it started small, learned along the way, and built institutions to help followers succeed. Success spread outward from Kamloops over time.

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