Australian Economic History

Australia's economic history is the story of the transformation of an indigenous economy and a small convict settlement into a nation of nearly 23 million people with advanced economic, social and political structures. It is a history of vast lands with rich, exploitable resources, of adversity in war, and of prosperity and nation building. It is also a history of human behaviour and the institutions created to harness and govern human endeavour. This account provides a systematic and comprehensive treatment of the nation's economic foundations, growth, resilience and future, in an engaging, contemporary narrative. It examines key themes such as the centrality of land and its usage, the role of migrant human capital, the tension between development and the environment, and Australia's interaction with the international economy. Written by a team of eminent economic historians, The Cambridge Economic History of Australia is the definitive study of Australia's economic past and present.

This book is the first comprehensive account of how Australia attained the world's highest living standards within a few decades of European settlement, and how the nation has sustained an enviable level of income to the present. Why Australia Prospered is a fascinating historical examination of how Australia cultivated and sustained economic growth and success. Beginning with the Aboriginal economy at the end of the eighteenth century, Ian McLean argues that Australia's remarkable prosperity across nearly two centuries was reached and maintained by several shifting factors. These included imperial policies, favorable demographic characteristics, natural resource abundance, institutional adaptability and innovation, and growth-enhancing policy responses to major economic shocks, such as war, depression, and resource discoveries. Natural resource abundance in Australia played a prominent role in some periods and faded during others, but overall, and contrary to the conventional view of economists, it was a blessing rather than a curse. McLean shows that Australia's location was not a hindrance when the international economy was centered in the North Atlantic, and became a positive influence following Asia's modernization. Participation in the world trading system, when it flourished, brought significant benefits, and during the interwar period when it did not, Australia's protection of domestic manufacturing did not significantly stall growth. McLean also considers how the country's notorious origins as a convict settlement positively influenced early productivity levels, and how British imperial policies enhanced prosperity during the colonial period. He looks at Australia's recent resource-based prosperity in historical perspective, and reveals striking elements of continuity that have underpinned the evolution of the country's economy since the nineteenth century.

In a time of pandemics, war and climate change, fostering knowledge that transcends disciplinary boundaries is more important than ever. Economic history is one of the world’s oldest interdisciplinary fields, with its prosperity dependent on connection and relevance to disciplinary behemoths economics and history. Australian Economic History is the first history of an interdisciplinary field in Australia, and the first to set the field’s progress within the structures of Australian universities. It highlights the lived experience of doing interdisciplinary research, and how scholars have navigated the opportunities and challenges of this form of knowledge. These lessons are vital for those seeking to develop robust interdisciplinary conversations now and in the future. This previously untold story of economic history in Australia exposes the centrality of economic thought and scholarship to Australian intellectual and political life. Deftly positioning economic history in an innovative institutional, place-based and person-focused narrative, Claire Wright entangles economics with the history of education to produce a tale of university interdisciplinarity, influence and impact. Written with vitality and bursting with both data and anecdote, this book makes an exceptional contribution to the intersecting fields of history, economics and higher education studies. – Hannah Forsyth, author of A History of the Modern Australian University. Few readers would expect to find a classical tragedy in the story of an academic field. Yet that is what Claire Wright shows us in this study of Economic History, as it has been practiced in Australia. She traces the field from legendary beginnings to triumphant growth to organisational collapse - and renaissance on other terms. Carefully researched and vigorously written, this book raises questions about disciplines and interdisciplinary fields, universities and markets, and social bases of intellectual work, that are relevant to all fields today. – Raewyn Connell, author of The Good University Australia proved a pioneer in the study of economic history, nurturing a discipline with innovative data and understanding of material trends. Yet by the 1990s economic history departments closed as senior scholars retired and the field was subsumed by conventional economics. In this absorbing study, Dr Claire Wright challenges the conventional account. She is tough-minded about financial and institutional pressures on the field, but cautiously optimistic about the future. It is a mistake, she argues, to see institutional representation as the benchmark of influence. Instead, the interdisciplinary nature of economic history has encouraged new research and teaching across the humanities and social sciences. With close attention to individual scholars and their university departments, and a deep sense of the trajectory of the field, Australian Economic History: Transformations of an Interdisciplinary Field is an original and important contribution to Australian intellectual history. – Glyn Davis, Distinguished Professor of Political Science in the Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University

First published in 1990, this book presents an original and comprehensive overview of Australian economic thought. The authors stress, by way of introduction, the many important innovative contributions Australian economists have made to thought worldwide. As the argument develops, the work of major figures is discussed in detail in addition to the role of different journals and economic societies.

"An Economic History of Australia" by Edward Shann. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

The authors trace the relationship between Australia's economic well being and the international economy from the late nineteenth-century onwards. This book fills the need for an introductory text in this area for undergraduate students of economics, politics and history and for the general reader who wishes to understand how the Australian economy operates.

In 1857 all of the Arts students at the University of Sydney could fit into a single photograph. Now there are more than one million university students in Australia. After World War II, Australian universities became less elite but more important, growing from six small institutions educating less than 0.2 per cent of the population to a system enrolling over a quarter of high school graduates. And yet, universities today are plagued with ingrained problems. More than 50 per cent of the cost of universities goes to just running them. They now have an explicit commercial focus. They compete bitterly for students and funding, an issue sharply underlined by the latest federal budget. Scholars rarely feel their vice-chancellors represent them and within their own ranks, academics squabble for scraps. Knowing Australia is a perceptive, clear-eyed account of Australian universities, recounting their history from the 1850s to the present. Investigating the changing nature of higher education, it asks whether this success is likely to continue in the 21st century, as the university’s hold over knowledge grows ever more tenuous.

Ms. and notes for this work, first published in 1930.