Eric Crampton • Nov 07, 2016 •
New Zealand’s Human Rights Commission says that property rights need to be protected in the Bill of Rights. I couldn’t agree more enthusiastically. The report is about what the government did to people in Christchurch’s Red Zone. The land around the Avon River was a mess after the quakes. The government decided that the simplest thing … Read More
Donal Curtin • Nov 27, 2015 •
A while back, I saw that a Special Housing Area (SHA) had been set up quite close to us, in Browns Bay. So I went and had a nosey, as you do. It wasn’t what I’d expected, from a number of perspectives. I’d had at the back of my mind that SHAs would be reasonably substantial sites – it’s rather … Read More
Donal Curtin • Sep 26, 2015 •
There’s a huge interest in foreign investment in New Zealand – it’s front page news when Chinese investors aren’t allowed to buy farms, or Asian investors are supposedly snapping up Auckland houses, and the piece I wrote about Statistics NZ’s data on foreign direct investment has had by far the biggest number of pageviews of anything I’ve written recently. Read More
Eric Crampton • Sep 10, 2014 •
If the particular character of a neighbourhood is all that important, why don't residents protect it using covenants?A reader emails me:I don’t think it is Nimbyism if a neighbourhood wants to protect its own character. What is Nimbyism is denying others beyond your neighbourhood the same opportunity you had.It seems counter intuitive to think a place like Houston which has … Read More
Eric Crampton • Jul 21, 2014 •
Auckland's battle over school zoning gives some hint as to the magnitude of the value at risk. Adrien de Croy, who lives with his family in a home zoned for EGGS and also within the proposed One Tree Hill College zone, understood there was significant pressure on the rolls at AGS and EGGS."They can't really reduce the zones unless there's … Read More
Eric Crampton • Jul 30, 2013 •
There appears little plausible economic justification for Labour's proposed ban on foreigners' buying houses. Let's take Seamus's logic from yesterday one step further. Recall Seamus's simple model: Consider a very simple model of the New Zealand housing market in which there is a fixed supply of identical houses that will not change over time, and an unchanging demand. Read More
Eric Crampton • Jun 06, 2013 •
I'd missed the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment's summary report on Christchurch housing when it came out a couple of months ago.* The highlights: Total housing stock dropped by a net 11,500, or 6.2% of the ex ante housing stock, from ... Read More
Eric Crampton • Mar 21, 2013 •
Matt Yglesias, author of "The Rent is Too Damned High", points to work damning America's blue states. The map shows that it takes far more hours of work at the state minimum wage to afford a two bedroom apartment in California, Maryland, DC, New J... Read More
Eric Crampton • Oct 15, 2012 •
Michael Berry looks at New Zealand's exchange rate in this weekend's Christchurch Press. I provided a few comments; he's quoted me accurately. I'm copying below what I'd sent Michael, not because he's gotten anything wrong, but rather because it seems ... Read More