A Fabian paradise or a one-man show? How the interwar Queensland economy seduced two prominent English economists

This article tells how the two British economists Hugh Dalton and Colin Clark, came to regard Queensland in the 1930s as an enviable model of economic development. Both men were Fabian socialists and impressed by Queensland's authoritarian premier and by its array of economic controls. Clark even surrendered a promising career at Cambridge to become an economic advisor there. In turn, Queensland, and a personal spiritual crisis, would propel Clark to discard Fabianism for Distributivism. In the final analysis Queensland's agrarian socialism was not drawn upon Fabian lines but rather impelled by a mix of rural development and electoral pragmatism.     

Douglas Copland's Battle With The Younger Brethren of Economists

This article discusses the problematic relationship between Douglas Copland and the new generation of post‐war Australian economists. Copland felt that their view of economic policy was contrary to Australia's best interests. The critique and feud was to last right up till Copland's retirement. The article shows how Copland's views differed from those of inside economists and therefore the official policy line.     

Australian economics in the twentieth century

In this, the eightieth year of the formalisation of the Australianeconomics profession, a survey of it seems appropriate. Whilethe profession's beginnings were marked by an idiosyncratic,heterodox tradition, the paper finds that those attributes haveby now been largely dissolved by internationalisation. To demonstratethis, two periods in Australian economic history, and the roleof economic opinion within each, are examined. One concernsthe mobilisation of native economics expertise in developingpolicies to deal with the Great Depression, while the latterepisode covers the rise of neo-liberal policy or economic rationalismin Australia. Unlike the interwar period and the post-war era,contemporary Australian economics, despite its policy successin reforming the economy has problems in attracting young mindsto its fold.     

John Maynard Keynes and the Keynes of the Commonwealth,Douglas Copland

When Douglas Copland of the University of Melbourne was about to go abroad in 1933, a leading Australian businessman, Herbert Gepp, hailed him as the ‘Keynes of the Commonwealth’. Gepp was referring to Copland's contributions to Australian economic policy, not that of the British Commonwealth, but there were similarities between Copland and John Maynard Keynes. In full flight, Copland impressed his compatriots with his prodigious work ethic, networking skills, persuasive powers with policy-makers, and practice of popularising economics in order to effect stabilisation policy. For a short time, there were two Keynes, one at the centre, the other at the periphery.     

NIEMEYER, SCULLIN AND THE AUSTRALIAN ECONOMISTS

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.     

Joan Robinson's disillusion with economics

In her last public comments on the state of economics, Joan Robinson made some extraordinary remarks that conveyed profound pessimism and theoretical nihilism. To account for the bleakness of Robinson's later views on economics and economic policy this article examines her last decade. These years were marked by an array of reverses to the causes she espoused. While ill health and a propensity to be provocative coloured her disposition, her comment about economic theory disintegrating in her hands was not made casually; it was, rather, an acknowledgement that her project to integrate Keynes with the classical surplus theory had failed. This acknowledgement crystallised into her rejection of the long-period equilibrium interpretation of Keynes's theory of unemployment. At the end of her life Robinson was willing only to embrace the more traditional short-period Keynesian model grounded in uncertainty and expectations.