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 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.
Latest reports:
Research Note: The Unreserved Bank of New Zealand: Why unorthodox monetary policy needs boundaries (2019)
#localismNZ: Bringing power to the people (2019)
Submission: Future of Tax (2018)
Submission: Overseas Investment Amendment Bill (2018)
Go Swiss: Learnings from The New Zealand Initiative's visit to Switzerland (2017)
Manifesto 2017: What the next New Zealand Government should do (2017)
Why Europe Failed (2015)
Phone: +64 4 499 0790
Too much money is spent on education. New Zealand invests billions into schooling its children. If they then also go to university, that only makes it worse. Read more
Few political decisions have weakened the European Union as much as Angela Merkel’s opening of her country’s borders in 2015. Read more
Dear minister, Read more
In this week’s New Zealand Initiative podcast, a scheduled release of the second quarter GDP statistics revealed the country’s economy dropped 12%, rather than the feared 16%. Read more
Judging by the usual economic indicators, you would never guess New Zealand is in a severe crisis. Read more
Labour finally announced some election policies this week: a new public holiday, a cap on bank fees and a new top rate of income tax. Read more
Politicians like shovelling out money for shovel-ready projects. Read more
The Covid-19 crisis can be summed up in one word: uncertainty. Read more
Walking around central Wellington, more shops are boarded up. On Lambton Quay, two bank branches recently disappeared. Just as the two Burger Kings on Lambton Quay and Courtney Place. Walking down Featherston St, there are empty shops every 40 or 50 metres. Read more
In this week’s New Zealand Initiative podcast, a second lockdown in the country’s largest city continues. The question of what might be happening to businesses as a consequence, however, is hard to answer. Read more
Unless you closely follow German politics, the name Karl Josef Laumann would mean nothing. And even if you are vaguely familiar with German federal politics, you also will not know much about the Health Minister in the state of North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW). Read more
Should a convicted fraudster be allowed to work as an insolvency practitioner? Read more
The Prime Minister has declared this year’s election, now postponed until October, a “Covid election.” Read more
At the end of this week, New Zealand is back in a situation we hoped to have left behind. With Auckland in lockdown and the country on alert, Covid-19 is back. Read more
Turkey is not the country you might expect to read about in a series of columns called “Spotlight on Europe.” Read more