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
Bürgen is leaving New Zealand. After decades on our supermarket shelves, the grainy loaves with the German name will soon be gone. Read more
One day after Christopher Luxon survived a confidence vote, Oliver and Damien ask whether he has finally shown the country who he really is. Next, they discuss Chris Penk's departure from politics and what it costs National. Read more
Free to Disagree is a new weekly podcast produced by The New Zealand Initaitive. Join Oliver Hartwich and Damien Grant as they talk about New Zealand politics and economics. Read more
Drones near airports, at least in New Zealand, are usually a nuisance rather than a threat. They are often flown by careless amateurs who have not read the rules. Read more
The cover of MBIE’s new Workforce Diversity Action Plan shows nine staff holding signs reading “I belong” in several languages. Inside, it declares itself “People-centred | Performance-driven | Evidence-informed”. Read more
When I specialised in marketing for the business part of my economics degree, I came across a puzzling group of people: consumers. Ask them about their product choices and they will tell you what they care about, how diligently they compare different items and how much weight they put on quality. Read more
In this episode, Oliver talks with Dr Sarah Irving-Stonebraker, associate professor of history at the Australian Catholic University, about why the West has largely lost the ability to think meaningfully about its own past. She calls this the ahistoric age and argues that the statues we topple and the national days we fight over are evidence of it rather than signs of real engagement with history. Read more
Dr Oliver Hartwich talked to Leah Panapa on The Platform about New Zealand's falling fertility rate and NZ First's proposal to pay families $15,000 for each child. Dr Hartwich argued that baby bonuses overseas have mostly been windfall payments for parents who wanted children anyway, and that making housing more affordable would do far more to help Kiwis start bigger families. Read more
Dr Oliver Hartwich talked to Wallace Chapman on RNZ's The Panel about NZ First's plan to pay parents $5,000 a year for a child's first three years, and why the money is unlikely to shift a fertility rate that has slipped to just under 1.6 children per woman. Schemes like it overseas have typically failed, including Australia's baby bonus, which rewarded parents who were having children anyway, and Dr Hartwich suggested that anyone serious about lifting fertility should look instead at the cost of housing, which pushes couples to start families later. Read more
Last week, Eric Crampton made the case for passing the RMA replacement Bills, while noting some risks in their current form. Nick Clark argued that Parliament should pause them. Read more
In this episode, Oliver talks with John Howard, senior fellow at the New Zealand Initiative, about why he sees no negotiated settlement over Iran in the next 30 to 60 days, and what prolonged disruption in the Strait of Hormuz exposes about New Zealand's fuel and fertiliser supply. They also ask whether the increase in defence spending from 1.1 to 2 per cent of GDP is being converted into actual hardware and personnel, and assess Defence Minister Chris Penk's opening months in the job, including his $300 million announcement on attack drones. Read more
In 1987, on a school trip to the German countryside, my maths teacher made a prediction. Dr Müller had worked at IBM before turning to teaching in our industrial city, Essen. Read more
Ask a well-informed European to name the Council of Europe's constitutional advisory body, and you will usually get a pause. I had to look it up myself last week, which is awkward for a Europe columnist, and worse for one with a doctorate in law. Read more
No country moves people the way New Zealand does. Nearly three in ten New Zealand residents were born overseas. Read more
As an economics student in Germany in the 1990s, I kept encountering two countries at the other end of the world. Whenever a professor wanted to prove that reform was possible, the examples were Australia and New Zealand. Read more