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
Too much money is spent on education. New Zealand invests billions into schooling its children. Read more
Few political decisions have weakened the European Union as much as Angela Merkel’s opening of her country’s borders in 2015. Back then, the German Chancellor unilaterally decided to allow millions of refugees stranded in Hungary to move into the bloc, triggering severe tensions between EU members. Read more
Dear minister, Let’s cut to the chase: New Zealand’s economy is in a perilous state. The covid-19 crisis is a one-in-100-year shock. 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%. But coupled with the government’s money printing plans, the true state of the New Zealand economy is tough to judge at this point. Read more
Judging by the usual economic indicators, you would never guess New Zealand is in a severe crisis. This tells us something about the economic and monetary system we inhabit. 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. It is easy to point out what all these measures have in common. Read more
Politicians like shovelling out money for shovel-ready projects. But let’s call a spade a spade: When push comes to shovel, it does not matter if projects are ready. Read more
The Covid-19 crisis can be summed up in one word: uncertainty. Practically everything about this crisis is uncertain: whether there will be a vaccine; whether the virus will mutate and how; the true fatality rate; and the long-term health damage in survivors. Read more
Walking around central Wellington, more shops are boarded up. On Lambton Quay, two bank branches recently disappeared. 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? If your spontaneous answer is “no way!”, then you agree with the board of RITANZ, the professional body for insolvency practitioners. Read more
The Prime Minister has declared this year’s election, now postponed until October, a “Covid election.” That is an unfortunate framing. Though dealing with Covid is crucial for the country’s short- to mid-term future, there are plenty of other attention-deserving issues like education, housing and transport. 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.” Of course, you could make a geographical argument. A small part of Turkey, East Thrace, is European. Read more