Description:
The Global Financial Crisis is likely to exert some impact upon the prevailing economic and political philosophy. The big question for economic and business instructors is to ponder whether it will lead to any significant changes in economic and business syllabus at Australian universities. The teaching of mainstream economics is durable and usually resistant to change. Yet the crisis has certainly caused rumblings in the teaching of first-year economics. There is certainly a great curiosity among the young about what went wrong. Moreover, they wish to know why neoliberalism has failed and why state intervention is resurgent. Young minds must be perplexed about the rapid revision of agenda from containing inflation in 2008 to coping with recession in 2009. This paper argues that an introductory course in the history of economic ideas could help tell them why.
Description:
It was 1970. It was the Age of Aquarius. The Boeing 747 was introduced into intercontinental service. In Australia, the Federal Treasurer, Les Bury, began to notice that inflation and unemployment were rising simultaneously. And Australian students began studying economics using a localised adaptation of Samuelson's classic textbook.
Description:
This article revisits the Niemeyer mission to Australia in 1930 and shows how it facilitated the entry of local economists into the art of policy making. Until then the Scullin government had little regard for the worth of academic economists, a view shared by bankers and central bankers alike. With Niemeyer’s dogmatic advice considered too draconian by a vacillating government, Australian economists, led by L. F. Giblin and D. B. Copland, were galvanised into providing a more palatable alternative. This advice eventually transformed into the Premiers’ Plan which complemented the devaluation and wage cut, both of which had been implemented in January 1931. While the Plan in its entirety was deflationary it was a more equitable and imaginative blueprint than Niemeyer’s.
Description:
This article revisits the Niemeyer mission to Australia in 1930 and shows how it facilitated the entry of local economists into the art of policy making. Until then the Scullin government had little regard for the worth of academic economists, a view shared by bankers and central bankers alike. With Niemeyer’s dogmatic advice considered too draconian by a vacillating government, Australian economists, led by L. F. Giblin and D. B. Copland, were galvanised into providing a more palatable alternative. This advice eventually transformed into the Premiers’ Plan which complemented the devaluation and wage cut, both of which had been implemented in January 1931. While the Plan in its entirety was deflationary it was a more equitable and imaginative blueprint than Niemeyer’s.
Description:
John Vaizey is almost a forgotten figure in modern British history and even more in the fields of political economy and economics where he first made his mark. His work is now rarely cited and, even in political histories of the Thatcher decade, or the travails of the Labour governments before then, his name rarely reappears. However Vaizey's pioneering work on the economics of education is beginning to be recognised and indeed followed. This paper reassesses his life, especially the last decade of his life when Vaizey, basked in the limelight, enjoyed some of the glittering prizes. It was a decade when Vaizey took some major ideological turns, one the most controversial being his decision to leave the Labour party after 30 years of membership. The paper revisits the reasons why Vaizey renounced democratic socialism, Keynesianism and, along with that, the beguiling promises of social science. It reflected his peculiar interest in political failure along with disillusionment in democratic socialism. The switch meant that this Cambridge-trained economist, tutored by Joan Robinson, had to convert, albeit reluctantly, to monetarism and ditch the post-war Keynesian consensus.
Description:
This paper revisits the matter of attracting students to study economics, an issue that faces every Australian university economics department. While the Australian economy has been in a boom phase for some period it has not led to a relative increase in economic degree enrolments for local universities. While some of the Go8 universities have seen a steady increase in economics degree enrolments between 1995 and 2007, the national picture, taken over a longer period, reveals that economic degree enrolments as a percentage of the overall student population is still falling. The paper concludes with the shy hope that, apart from improvement to the syllabus and teaching methodologies, the marked economic slowdown might elicit an increase in student interest in economics. The paper closes by suggesting that now might be an appropriate time for the regimen of the ideal economics degree offered by Australian universities to be re-examined.
Description:
On a March evening in 1973 the ABC television compere of the Monday Conference programme, Robert Moore introduced his guest, Paul Samuelson, by holding aloft a copy of his economics textbook. Moore joked that Samuelson had taught more people economics than anyone else. He was also, of course, an eminent economist with major contributions in public finance, international economics and the dissemination of Keynesian economics. This paper will discuss how the Australian adaption of Paul Samuelson's Economics came about. Extensively adapted to fit Australian conditions, the two Australian authors, Keith Hancock and Bob Wallace, both at Flinders University, came up with a publishing success that was to take Australian university economics instruction by storm. They were not, however, Samuelson's first choice as adaptors. A whole generation of Australian students was brought up on Samuelson. It was also the first attempt at adapting an overseas text to suit Australian institutions and conventions. The paper assesses how well it was received and how it spawned imitators.
Description:
This article undertakes a census of how the Australian economics profession changed over the span of eleven years. It shows that the academic economics community has become more professionalised. It also explores which departments are expanding or contracting and whether there is any truth in the claim that the profession is becoming more Americanised.
Description:
This article undertakes a census of how the Australian economics profession changed over the span of eleven years. It shows that the academic economics community has become more professionalised. It also explores which departments are expanding or contracting and whether there is any truth in the claim that the profession is becoming more Americanised.
Description:
The Great Depression is famous for enticing a whole generation of young men and women into studying economics especially in Britain and America and even in this country. What then of the great financial turbulence caused by the subprime crisis? Did it provoke an increase in student interest in economics? Or perhaps the relatively milder traverse Australia has enjoyed over the past three years has meant that student interest was not ignited by what was happening overseas. This paper scrutinises the latest enrolment data for Australia and the other Anglophone countries to ascertain whether there has been any marked increase in economics degree enrolments. [Author abstract]
Description:
Adelaide has made a significant contribution to Australian economics. Since 1966, the University of Adelaide and Flinders University have been the partners behind the journal Australian Economic Papers (AEP). It has been an adventurous undertaking sometimes disconcerted by financial vulnerability, which at times, threatened its very existence. After outlining the journal's history, this paper undertakes a forensic examination of the AEP, and provides a comparison with its most obvious competitor, The Economic Record (ER). Despite its bold ambitions, we find that the AEP is now Australia's second‐ranking generalist economics journal and suffering the fate of being of that genre.
Description:
Despite talk about the first sightings of the ‘green shoots of recovery’ the Global Financial Crisis which began to unfold in August 2007 is likely to exert some impact upon the prevailing economic and political philosophy. The big question for economic and business instructors is to ponder whether it will lead to any significant changes in economic and business syllabus at Australian universities. The teaching of mainstream economics is durable and usually resistant to change. Yet the crisis has certainly caused rumblings in the teaching of first-year economics. As one ABC reporter recently asked ‘How do you teach economics at a time like this?’ There is certainly a great curiosity among the young about what went wrong. Moreover they wish to know why neoliberalism has failed and why state interventionism is resurgent. Young minds must be perplexed about the rapid revision of agenda from containing inflation in 2008 to coping with recession in 2008. To paraphase the lyrics to the old Talking Heads song ‘Once in a lifetime’ ‘You may ask yourself, well… how did we get here?’ This is what they and we are asking themselves. This paper argues that an introductory course in economic ideas could help tell them why.
Description:
Despite talk about the first sightings of the ‘green shoots of recovery’ the Global Financial Crisis which began to unfold in August 2007 is likely to exert some impact upon the prevailing economic and political philosophy. The big question for economic and business instructors is to ponder whether it will lead to any significant changes in economic and business syllabus at Australian universities. The teaching of mainstream economics is durable and usually resistant to change. Yet the crisis has certainly caused rumblings in the teaching of first-year economics. As one ABC reporter recently asked ‘How do you teach economics at a time like this?’ There is certainly a great curiosity among the young about what went wrong. Moreover they wish to know why neoliberalism has failed and why state interventionism is resurgent. Young minds must be perplexed about the rapid revision of agenda from containing inflation in 2008 to coping with recession in 2008. To paraphase the lyrics to the old Talking Heads song ‘Once in a lifetime’ ‘You may ask yourself, well… how did we get here?’ This is what they and we are asking themselves. This paper argues that an introductory course in economic ideas could help tell them why.