AUSTRALASIAN ECONOMIC HISTORY: RESEARCH CHALLENGES AND BIG QUESTIONS

This paper reports a debate on the 'big questions' and 'research challenges' facing economic history in Australia and New Zealand. Noting the changes in research direction that occurred in the discipline over the past 50 years, and the resource challenges it currently faces, it identifies many areas of potentially fruitful research. These include the environment, market regulation and industry development, the interaction of peoples and culture, and the examination of units other than the national economy. While there is potential for exciting and diverse research, an immediate challenge is the training of the next generation of economic historians.     

THE SUPPLY OF ECONOMIC HISTORY IN AUSTRALASIA: THE AUSTRALIAN ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW AT 50

In 2010, the Australian Economic History Review published its 50th volume. To mark the occasion, we present a quantitative analysis of the output of economic and business history that has appeared in its pages since 1956, and review the development of the discipline through its journal editors. Content was until recently overwhelmingly focused on Australia and New Zealand economic and business history, despite the efforts of past editors to attract more scholarship on the wider Asia‐Pacific region. Articles on Asia and the rest of the world have become more common since the late 1990s.     

IDEAS FROM AUSTRALIAN CITIES: RELOCATING URBAN AND SUBURBAN HISTORY

This article draws on preliminary research into the social history of Melbourne, on the ways that suburban life in the post-World War II era provides both explanation and counterweight to persistently negative stereotypes of suburbia. Over recent decades, suburban histories have been eschewed in favour of historical reconsiderations of the inner city or the bush. The history of the Australian suburb, particularly since 1945, is yet to be written. Oral history and municipal archives will be crucial to the writing of such histories. The article suggests several research pathways, including intergenerational life stories, a wider scale of geographical analysis, and a subtler reading of cultural conformity and social differentiation.     

AUSTRALIAN IMMIGRATION ARCHIVES AS SOURCES FOR BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC HISTORY

The administration and control of immigration to Australian during the twentieth century produced a huge archive of records of individual migrants that have potential for innovative approaches to the business and economic history of ethnic minority groups. This article describes some of these records, which have mostly been used by amateur family historians, focused on those related to Chinese immigrants before the World War II and Southern Europeans immigrants after 1945. The article gives examples of how these records can be used, suggests potential research projects, and discusses briefly some of the guides available. Several images of these archival documents are reproduced.     

A CLIOMETRIC REVOLUTION IN THE ECONOMIC HISTORY OF KOREA: A CRITICAL REVIEW

Cliometric approaches to the economic history of Korea have emerged as a distinctive trend from the mid‐1990s. They have quickly made profound changes to our understanding of Korea's economic history from 1700 to 1945. The most remarkable include identifying the long‐term decline of agricultural productivity from around 1800, the subsequent upswing in economic development from the late nineteenth century, and the continuing growth during the Japanese colonial era, 1910–45. We survey primarily the Korean language literature that reports the achievements of this cliometric movement and speculate about the future research agenda.     

URBAN HISTORY AND THE FUTURE OF AUSTRALIAN CITIES

Urban growth is a major theme in economic development and a policy imperative for developed countries that seek to create sustainable cities. We argue that the past weighs heavily on the ability of societies to sustainably manage urban environments. The policy implications of urban history are revealed in comparisons of cities across times and between places. The special issue presents some of the best recent work on the economic and social history of Australian cities. We aim to encourage historians to incorporate urban variables into studies of historical processes and to persuade policymakers to consider historical trends in their analysis.     

STATE TRADING IN TANGANYIKA1

T he purpose of this paper is to point out some of the effects of, as well as some of the political reasons for, government intervention into trade in Tanganyika. In so doing, we shall point out: (1) the nature of private trading operations in this country, (2) the political and economic role of co-operatives, and (3) some of the effects of government intervention on the rate of economic growth.     

WELFARE, ENTERPRISE, AND ABORIGINAL COMMUNITY: THE CASE OF THE WESTERN AUSTRALIAN KIMBERLEY REGION, 1968–96

This article traces the development of Aboriginal-controlled businesses and their ability to access land, labour, and finance in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. It investigates the influence of the development policies on Aboriginal commercial operations. Among other things, the implementation of a new policy – beginning in the early 1970s – saw the handing over by the state of large tracts of land, and the provision of labour and finance to Aboriginal interests. The article analyses the tension between land and enterprise as a welfare measure and as a means of commercial endeavour.     

HIDDEN DISCIPLINES IN MALAYSIA: THE ROLE OF BUSINESS HISTORY IN A MULTI-DISCIPLINARY FRAMEWORK

Business history plays a crucial role in the understanding of the history and socioeconomic development of Malaysia. This paper analyses that role through an assessment of the most relevant colonial, post-colonial, and contemporary literature. Malaysian business history adopts a multidisciplinary approach, which has the potential to propel the discipline to address potentially sensitive political issues in Malaysia, though in the past business history's assimilation into other disciplines has discouraged, with notable exceptions, its potential to explore sensitive topics. In conclusion, the paper outlines the challenges faced by Malaysian business history academics and argues for extending the discipline's boundaries.     

EMPTOR AUSTRALIS: THE AUSTRALIAN CONSUMER IN EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY ADVERTISING LITERATURE

Well aware that it is the consumer who makes or breaks an advertisement, the advertising industry has long paid close attention to its audience. However, advertising historians have generally overlooked the industry's efforts to define the consumer and the impact this has had upon advertisements and the advertising industry itself. By examining the changing conceptualisation of the Australian consumer featured in the locally produced advertising literature during the early twentieth century, this study offers an insight into the inner workings of Australia's fledgling advertising industry. It demonstrates the ways in which advertising interacted with the world around it.     

THE SECOND NOEL BUTLIN LECTURE: LABOUR-INTENSIVE INDUSTRIALISATION IN GLOBAL HISTORY

East Asian industrialisation has shown that modern industry has occurred across different cultures under a variety of factor-endowment conditions. The global history of the diffusion of industrialisation over the past two centuries suggests two distinct routes. The first is the 'Western path' associated with capital- and energy-intensive industry. The second path to creating a modern industrial economy is the 'East Asian path' based on labour-intensive industrialisation that has built on quality labour resources cultivated in the traditional sector. This was the path followed by Japan from the nineteenth century and by many other countries in Asia during the twentieth century.