Oliver is the Executive Director of The New Zealand Initiative. Before joining the Initiative, he was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney, the Chief Economist at the Policy Exchange in London, and an advisor in the UK House of Lords.
Oliver holds a master's degree in economics and business administration and a PhD in Law from Bochum University in Germany.
Oliver is available to comment on all of the Initiative’s research areas.
Phone: +64 4 499 0790
This week, opinion polls revealed that the Government is more popular than ever. On current figures, Labour could comfortably govern alone, the Prime Minister’s ratings are stratospheric, and nine in ten New Zealanders approve of the Government’s handling of the public health crisis. Read more
As New Zealand moves towards some new form of normality, the question becomes how to benefit from eliminating Covid-19 in New Zealand. It is worth looking at other countries’ specific problems. Take Germany’s football league, for example. Read more
Watching Budget 2020 delivered yesterday was a surreal experience. It was two things at once. Read more
As New Zealand moves towards the 2020 Budget, there is increasing talk about shovel-ready projects, stimulus and building the recovery. It all makes me nervous, probably because I am still spooked by another crisis in another country. Read more
It was an unusual document Angela Merkel just found in her in-tray. Written in French and on joint letterhead, 15 members of France’s Parliament penned an open letter to the German Chancellor. Read more
New Zealand has come out of lockdown to enter the purgatory of Three-dom (hopefully for only a couple of weeks). The path towards a new normal remains long and littered with challenges. Read more
How do you get an economy going again when entire industries are destroyed? How do you encourage private consumption when families are trying to make ends meet? Read more
The New Zealand Initiative’s Executive Director Oliver Hartwich presented to the Epidemic Response Committee today. He outlined his vision for New Zealand’s social, political and economic future. Read more
Is it 2010 again? Back then, crisis meeting followed crisis meeting to save Europe’s monetary union from collapse. Read more
The longer the acute Covid-19 crisis lasts, the more we hear that our economic world will not be the same after the crisis. Some things will of course change. Read more
The world is at war. The enemy may be a tiny virus, but this string of ribonucleic acid has the effect of a large military force. Read more
We all know those newspaper segments which feature a previously famous person. And then we read these articles wondering why we have not heard from them for such a long time, and sometimes we may even be surprised to hear that they are still alive. Read more
Yesterday, New Zealand’s biggest magazine publisher Bauer announced it would close its operations. Many well-established magazines including The Listener, North & South and Metro will disappear from the shelves forever. Read more
More than 2000 New Zealand businesses have annual revenues over $80 million. That is the baseline for "tailor-made" assistance that Finance Minister Grant Robertson has promised to provide to larger firms that are suffering from the coronavirus pandemic. Read more
These are times like no other. Unless you are well over 80, you would not remember an existential and comprehensive crisis like this. Read more