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.
Phone: +64 4 499 0790
Do you remember Jacques Santer? If you do, it is probably because Monsieur Santer was the first President of the European Commission to resign from office. Read more
Call me a tragic but even in my spare time, I am thinking about politics. Thus, over the summer holidays, I stumbled across a new computer game: Democracy 4. Read more
The Ministry of Education has called in an expert panel for advice on how to improve math skills. Oliver Hartwich tells Heather du Plessis-Allan on Newstalk ZB that today's 15-year-olds are performing the same as 13-year olds in 2000. Read more
In this Magic Talk interview, Dr Oliver Hartwich shares his thoughts about the Government's response to the recent Climate Change Commission's report, which outlined a path to achieve more ambitious greenhouse gas reductions.
The New Zealand Initiative · Government's response to Climate Change Commission's report Read more
Every time I read another excitable media article about New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern, I am reminded of an old quip: ‘Viewed from a distance, everything is beautiful.’ That was Publius Cornelius Tacitus (AD 58-120). Were this Roman intellectual and historian alive today, he would make a great New York Times columnist. Read more
This week, Stuff’s Thomas Coughlan uncovered an extraordinary story of last-minute heroics by officials who demanded good practice on an important decision. As Cabinet prepared to make its final decision on the proposed Auckland light rail project in February 2020, Treasury intervened. Read more
As the world approaches the end of this annus horribilis, there is a sense of relief. Not just because 2020 will soon be history but also because the economic disaster could have been so much worse. Read more
In his latest podcast on Newstalk ZB, Leighton Smith talks to Oliver Hartwich about citizenship, the Emissions Trading Scheme, China, education, and other matters.
The New Zealand Initiative · Leighton Smith podcast with Oliver Hartwich Read more
This morning, Newsroom published a story concerning a private and anonymous blog by one of our staff, Nathan Smith. Nathan joined us earlier this year from the National Business Review, where he had worked as a journalist for seven years. Read more
As that great philosopher Homer Simpson once said, “Just because I don’t care doesn’t mean I don’t understand.” For climate policy debates, it is a bit different. Most people do care about cutting carbon emissions, but they still do not understand how it works. Read more
Thanks to the work of successive climate change ministers from David Parker to James Shaw, New Zealand has a world-leading Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). We should rely on it to drive down our carbon emissions, argues the Initiative’s executive director Dr Oliver Hartwich. Read more
In this episode of the New Zealand Initiative podcast operations director Chelsy Killick and executive director Oliver Hartwich share their experiences with researching the problems with Kiwi education. Both have been with the Initiative for its entire eight year existence, and during that time, have chronicled the deterioration of education since they were at school in New Zealand and in Germany. Read more
In this Quick Take podcast, Oliver Hartwich explains why Italy’s dire debt situation threatens the European Union's integrity and why no one in the bloc wants to think about forgiving the country’s enormous loans anytime soon. If you would like to listen to our latest podcasts, please subscribe to The New Zealand Initiative podcast on iTunes, Spotify or The Podcast App. Read more
In this Quick Take podcast, Oliver Hartwich unpacks his op-ed for the Australian Financial Review in which he argued that politicians on both sides of the Tasman aren’t thinking clearly about their respective housing crises. Oliver's article in the Australian Financial Review can be read here. Read more
When the Covid-19 crisis first struck Italy earlier this year, this column warned it might set off a chain of events that would wreck the Mediterranean country’s economy. On 10 March (A catastrophe that will cripple Italy), I pointed out that Italy would experience an economic collapse as public debt soared past 150 percent of GDP. Read more