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
On Wednesday morning last week, I was getting ready for my afternoon speech at the Financial Services Council conference in Auckland. Between sessions, I scrolled through X on my phone. Read more
More than half of New Zealanders think the country is going in the wrong direction. Trust in Parliament, the courts and the Reserve Bank has fallen sharply since 2021. Read more
In this episode, Oliver talks to Stephen Crosswell, a partner at Baker McKenzie in Hong Kong, the world’s strongest law firm brand. He is chair of the firm’s Asia-Pacific Antitrust & Competition Group and one of Hong Kong’s leading trial lawyers, admitted to practise in five countries. Read more
Tell someone in an Auckland café that the economy is booming and they will laugh. Unemployment in the city is 6.1 per cent. Read more
In this episode, Oliver talks to Roger Partridge about his new report "Unscrambling Government," which proposes consolidating New Zealand's extraordinarily complex government structure from 81 ministerial portfolios, 28 ministers, and 43 departments down to a more manageable 15-20 portfolios with corresponding departmental consolidation. They discuss how New Zealand's fragmented ministerial system creates accountability problems, increases fiscal costs, and hampers effective decision-making on critical issues like housing affordability, comparing unfavourably to other small advanced economies that operate with far simpler structures. Read more
This webinar launches Unscrambling Government: Less Confusion, More Efficiency, a report by Roger Partridge proposing practical reforms to New Zealand’s fragmented executive of 81 portfolios, 28 ministers, and 43 departments. Hosted by Dr Oliver Hartwich with commentary from Dr Murray Horn (former Treasury Secretary; ex-ANZ CEO), the discussion explores how consolidating portfolios into 15–20 senior ministers supported by junior ministers, and aligning departments to around 20, could restore clarity, speed up decisions, and sharpen accountability—drawing on lessons from Ireland, Norway, Singapore, and Australia’s Hawke-era reforms. Watch below. Read more
Fifteen years ago, as Greece teetered on debt default, I started covering European affairs in my columns. Readers may remember the emergency summits, riots in Athens, and financial bailouts from 2009 to 2012. Read more
In this episode, Oliver talks to Eric Crampton and Benno Blaschke about the New Zealand government’s supermarket competition reforms, which closely reflect The New Zealand Initiative’s policy framework—a major policy win that saw their research inform the Minister of Finance’s approach. They explain how their practical policy document shifted government thinking away from heavy-handed breakups and toward tackling the real structural barriers in planning and regulation. Read more
Last week, New Zealand’s Reserve Bank (RBNZ) cut interest rates to 3.0 percent. The government was quick to take the credit. Read more
In this episode, Oliver talks to James Keirstead about his latest research report "Amazing Grades" which provides the first systematic analysis of grade inflation across all New Zealand universities. They discuss how A-grades have increased by 13 percentage points over two decades, reaching 35% of all grades awarded, and explore potential solutions including statistical moderation systems and national examinations to restore meaningful academic standards. Read more
“Artificial unintelligence more like it.” So declared a reader of The Australian after one of my recent columns on artificial intelligence. Another chimed in with this observation: ‘AI can NOT work out what is a Spam or Phishing E-Mail, something that a human can do at just a glance.’ I stared at these comments, genuinely bewildered. Read more
In this webinar, we launch our new report Amazing Grades: Grade Inflation at New Zealand Universities. Author Dr James Kierstead presents key findings on rising grades across NZ’s universities, joined by commentary from Professor Douglas Elliffe. Read more
In this episode, Benno Blaschke talks to Oliver Hartwich about the recent Trump-Putin meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, where Trump appeared to abandon the Western position of seeking a ceasefire first in favour of Putin's demand for an immediate "peace deal" that would cement Russian territorial gains. They discuss the troubling implications of Trump applauding Putin on arrival, the bizarre shared ride in the presidential limousine, and how this summit signals a dangerous shift from rules-based international order to great power politics that could embolden other territorial aggressors, particularly China. Read more
Michelle Shocked’s 1988 song “Anchorage” tells of old friends whose lives diverged. One settled in Alaska with husband and kids, the other remained a punk rocker in New York. Read more
At the Initiative, we read the latest economic research, so you do not have to. Sometimes we find studies that are clever. Read more