The Changing Fortunes of the Economic Society of Australia over the Twentieth Century

Abstract

As it nears its centenary in 2025, the Economic Society of Australia finds itself not as comfortably ensconced as its overseas counterparts. Established to promote economics education, the Society was, in its formative years, largely run by university economists and business identities. As a professional grouping, the Society appealed to economists from all walks of life and commanded that status until at least the 1980s. One of the challenges facing the Society was the readability of the Society’s flagship, the Economic Record, for its membership. Another challenge was whether the Society took a proportionate share of the large numbers studying economics at university. Today the internationalisation of the academic economics profession poses a significant challenge to the Society.

Keywords:

• Economic Society of Australia
• disengagement
• economics education

1. Introduction

As the centenary of the Economic Society of Australia draws nearer, it is time for some reflection about how the Society has fared over the past 100 years and some of the challenges it now faces. Bob Scott, a one-time honorary Secretary of the Society, was commissioned to write the first 60 years of its history (Scott 1990). He completed the study concluding that the Society had retained its format since its inception though it had now become purely Australian-based with its membership changed to a more professional footing. His 1990 study did not foresee, however, the gathering forces that were to impact upon the Australian higher education sector shortly thereafter. These would spell significant change for the university economics profession and, more importantly, challenge the very existence of the Economic Society.

This first part of this paper briefly covers the history of the Society through the twentieth century and how it faced challenges, including the loss of the New Zealand half of the Society, coming as it did with the erosion in membership as other specialist academic societies took hold. One irritant to much of the business membership of the Society was having to pay for the Society’s flagship journal, the Economic Record. In part two a profile of the editorship of the Economic Record in its first 50 years is provided, and the struggle to remain relevant to the lay membership. The third part of the paper discusses the challenges that confronted the Society in the 1990s, such as the decline in economics education, digitisation, and the growing internationalisation of the Australian economics profession. The latter factor is also discussed in part four of the paper and how it eventually led to the Society and its journals suffering a decline in status and influence. The paper ends noting how the Society’s leadership has responded to some, but not all, of these challenges.

2. Beginnings

Douglas Copland, the Inaugural Dean of the Faculty of Commerce at the University of Melbourne, was the founder and driving force of what was initially known as the Economic Society of Australia and New Zealand. It was a unique achievement in that the Society encompassed both Australia and New Zealand. It was formally established in 1925 but one branch, Queensland, jumped the gun and held its first meeting in November 1924. The Society was, as it were, a republican version of the Royal Economic Society in England which itself had its origins in the royal patronage of scientific scholars.¹ But this antipodean version made for no drawing room society; when it was first formed it represented a confederation of ten autonomous branches spread across the major cities of Australia and New Zealand. That loose framework would prove to be an enduring one, though some branches like Western Australia and Queensland have sometimes felt remote from the larger branches of New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria. Countering that was a commitment that the role of President be rotated amongst the states and New Zealand. Today, the Society remains one of the oldest professional networks in Australia and it remains the peak organisation for Australian economists. At the time of inception, it was the only platform for economics discourse. A hundred years on it remains a leading forum for debate on ideas and issues dealing with the Australian economy.

Only Copland could carry it off, not merely because of his organisational zeal and brazen no-nonsense style of leadership; he also was a citizen of both countries. He became, therefore, ‘founder, first President, first editor’ (Scott 1980, 190). As mentioned, the structure of the Society encompassed the two countries (Mauldon and Weller 1960). The New Zealanders implicitly trusted Copland to speak on their behalf when they could not attend Central Council meetings of the Society which were usually held in Australia. Given the distance between the two nations this was quite a common occurrence. Indeed, in the first 75 years of its existence there have only been two occasions when the President was a New Zealand-based university economist (Colin Simkin 1952–54 and Sir Frank Holmes 1967–68). Ultimately, the distance factor would fracture the Society, with the New Zealand branches beginning to close down in the 1970s. But, in the 1920s, Copland was proud that this society, still in its infancy, was one of the few entities that united Australia and New Zealand, although, as he later told Keynes, New Zealanders became very ‘touchy’ about the Society being solely identified as Australian, or even Australasian.²

Copland had earlier alerted Keynes to the Society and of its intention to launch a journal.³ What he did not tell Keynes was that this new body had, unlike the Royal Economic Society and American Economic Association, very close links with both business and government circles – links that endure to this very day though the representation from the business world has faded.

The Society took immediate pride in establishing its own journal, the Economic Record, in its first year of existence. It was to be an integral part of the Society and still remains its showpiece today. In joining the Society, members automatically took out a subscription to receive the Record. As the flagship of the Society, the journal had two functions: first, to publish research at the frontiers of economic inquiry, and second, to act as a forum for the discipline of policy issues as well as to survey developments in the major fields of economics (Fraser 1994). For many years it met the wishes of the membership. One enthusiastic branch member summed it up when he said:

The main activity of our Society is the publication of the Economic Record. It is impossible to speak in any other but an enthusiastic manner of the success of this activity – it is a magnificent journal, well worth the annual subscription of those members who, by their own choice, or perhaps unavoidably, get nothing else out of the Society.⁴

The post-World War II era was the golden days of the Society as it went from strength to strength. Australian economists, including leading theorists such as Trevor Swan and Wilfred Salter, had most of their research published there. In those days there was little focus on academic economists seeking to have research articles published internationally.

In a major initiative, Australian economists began to break away from the protective umbrella of the biannual Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science (ANZAAS) conference by holding their own conference in 1970. The ANZAAS conference had only limited places and tended to be dominated by the senior members of the profession. At the first Conference of Economists (later called the Annual Conference of Australian Economists) in Melbourne, some 35 papers were presented. By 1978 the number of papers fell just short of 100 submissions; by 1993, 200 papers were presented at the Conference of Economists in Perth. The Annual Conference of Australian Economists proved a success and established a camaraderie, while the growth in student numbers and proliferation of economics courses in the 1960s and 1970s meant the end of the old boy network.

The halcyon days of the Society, and perhaps Australian economics, in terms of influence, prestige and membership, were probably after 1945. By the early 1980s membership of the Society peaked around 2,400 (today it is around 1,600). NSW and Victoria remain the biggest branches, accounting for 70% of the membership; NSW had over 1,000 members in the 1990s. The membership today is more diverse than in the past, including academics, public and private sector economists, and others with an interest in economic issues.

2.1. Fragmentation

It was in the 1970s, though, that the Society faced its first existential challenge. Across the Tasman the New Zealand part of the Society was losing members, with most of the university economists deserting to form their own association. One of their grievances, pertinent to our story, was that too much of the branch activity there was consumed by businessmen discussing business-related challenges. By 1983 the separation was complete with the closure of the last remaining New Zealand branch; it was now just the Economic Society of Australia.

In 1988 a grand conference, called the Australian Economic Congress, to mark the Bicentennial was held in Canberra. A thousand delegates were in attendance with some 41% drawn from the higher education sector. Apart from the Society itself, it featured economists from the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand, the Econometric Society and the Australian Agricultural Economics Society. The Congress proved an all too rare example of how the Economic Society could cooperate with other academic societies and, with it, offer the prospect of multiple memberships. The Society has taken a remarkably relaxed view of specialisation, in that, over the years, some of the membership decamped to form other associations. This had first occurred in 1958 when Australian and New Zealand economic historians formed their own network and journal; agricultural and resource economists followed soon after. Industrial relations scholars and statisticians had also left to form their own association. Local econometricians, too, soon formed their own Australasian chapter of the Econometric Society. This meant that some of the best theoretical papers were no longer presented at the Conference of Economists. Many financial sector economists left the NSW branch of the Society to join their own grouping known as the Australian Business Economists which began in 1980. This last fissure was quite a blow since the Society had, until then, rather profitably conducted its own half-day forecasting seminars for Melbourne and Sydney audiences. Scott reasoned that the fragmentation of the membership base was a natural outgrowth of both economic knowledge and sophistication. Over the two years, June 1993 to June 1995, membership fell from 2,226 to 1,885, causing the Society’s leadership considerable angst.

Things had been so much easier in the first 60 years of the Society’s existence when it was the sole platform for promoting the discussion of economic issues. Today, there is a plethora of interest groups offering economic opinion and networking opportunities, such that the prestige and authority of the Economic Society have diminished somewhat. However, unlike those other organisations or associations, the Society has never had a house philosophy or ideology to prosecute; nor has it barred anyone from joining.⁵

By the time Scott finished his history there were other incipient challenges afoot. One particular challenge was that of growing student uninterest in economics; this first manifested itself in the 1990s with declining enrolments in economics degrees. Another, more millennial challenge, was that, with the internationalisation of the economics profession, many university economists, unlike earlier generations, saw little benefit in joining the Economic Society. A more familiar challenge concerning the Record was how, over the years, it had been regarded by some elements of the membership.

3. The Economic Record

In its first 50 years the Economic Record (Record hereafter) had just three editors-in-chief; they were Douglas Copland (1925–46), Alf Weller (1946–53) and Richard Downing (1954–73). It was Downing and his successors, though, who would have to contend with what Max Corden called ‘the problem’ with the journal. Given the Society’s mixed membership, the readability of the Record became a perennial issue for the Council; many non-academic members, perplexed by its contents, were angry at how their membership fees subsidised its publication. This matter of readability first arose in the 1950s when the Record began to exhibit a more technical and theoretic edge.

One member of the West Australian branch protested to D. W. Oxnam, the President of the branch, about the proposed lift in capitation fees canvassed to allow the Record to increase the number of issues to three a year. While the enlargement of the Record would give opportunity for the publication of papers from scientific economists, ‘if there are such people’, it would be ‘unreasonable’ to provide this facility to economists at the expense of a considerable proportion of members of the branch who were not professional economists. The correspondent added that within the branch membership of around 70, ‘there are very few professional economists’.⁶

This issue of dissonance was long in the making. In 1925 most members of the Society were initially drawn from the business world; there was only a sprinkling of university economists. From its earliest days, the journal had at least one leading Melbourne businessman, such as Edward Dyason followed by Sir Lennon Raws, the Australian head of Imperial Chemical Industries, sitting on the editorial board. When Raws stood down in 1969, the editorial board for the first time consisted solely of leading Australasian university economists, two of whom were always from New Zealand. In the 1950s the Record remained the only authoritative journal of economics in Australia and New Zealand and one of which academic members could be proud.

Downing had to contend with placating disgruntled members unhappy with the content of the Record. One expedient was to introduce commentaries on the state of the Australian and New Zealand economies. This expedient proved popular with the non-academic membership (Scott 1990, 35). The economic briefings were intended to redress the absence of any ‘regular public synthesis of information’ on the Australian and New Zealand economies (Brown 2001, 177). Downing conceded that commissioning and publishing these survey articles was somewhat ‘unusual’ for a learned journal like the Record.⁷ This series of economic surveys would continue until 1967 when the newly published Australian Economic Review, issued by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, took over that brief.⁸ One response by the Society to the discontent of some of its members was to make Economic Papers, which officially became the Society’s second journal in 1982, more accessible to a business readership (Scott 1990, 41).

At the Record Downing was assisted in his editing by Heinz Arndt at the Australian National University (ANU), who, from the 1950s onward, became his key offsider (Arndt 1985, 29). Apart from carefully reading every manuscript submitted, Downing and Arndt spent a decade polishing and crafting rough submissions into something that was presentable for the Record. The two men ‘cajoled and bullied’ both local professors and international visitors to send their work to the Record (Hughes 2000, 483).

Downing and Arndt also had to maintain a judicious balance between ‘gentlemen and players’ in terms of authorship, readership and subjects canvassed. The struggle was to maintain a balance between the technical and non-technical. The latter was to please those whom Downing called ‘t.b.m.’, code for tired businessmen. If annoyed, they would quickly make their disquietude known at branch meetings (Brown 2001, 190). They frequently called for the Council to direct that the journal include articles ‘of a more popular and less academic character’ (Arndt 1976).

While businessmen would cast a sceptical eye over the contents of the journal, Downing had to ensure that it was still publishing the best from Australian university economists; the Record remained the primary outlet for established Australian economists well into the 1970s and beyond. Such was its dominance that a new rival journal Australian Economic Papers, established in 1962 by the University of Adelaide, was expressly designed as an organ for younger economists seeking to publish because the Record could barely cope with submissions from the more established economists. It would also allow more scope for publishing technical papers.

Downing was also keen to raise the international profile of the journal by publishing more theoretical articles from Australian economists; these could possibly have found publication in prestigious overseas economic journals. Sometimes such patriotism or parochialism came at a cost, however, to the individual authors. The Record accepted one of Geoff Harcourt’s earliest theoretic articles on a post-Keynesian-inspired two-sector macroeconomic model because Arndt, who admitted that he did ‘not follow it all’, was impressed by its technical soundness and by virtue of the fact that several leading Cambridge economists had read it and commented positively on it. Arndt also liked it because it had a ‘distinctive Australian contribution’, including a reference to the work of Wilfrid Salter.⁹ However Harcourt would later regret sending what he considered one of his most treasured papers there, because the article ‘virtually vanished without trace’ (Harcourt in King 1995, 173).

Another famous episode involved Trevor Swan, Australia’s most distinguished economic theoretician, who sent his paper on his economic growth model to the Record in 1956 (Swan 2022). His theoretic article on ‘Economic Growth and Capital Accumulation’, the most cited paper ever to appear in the Record, foreshadowed Robert Solow’s own model of economic growth which earned him a Nobel prize in economics. Swan’s contribution was completely overlooked by the Nobel prize-giving panel.

Even if the Record was recognised as one of the first of 14 English language economic journals, selected in 1963 for the first issues of the Journal of Economic Abstracts, its inclusion flattered to deceive. The fact was, as Butlin’s (1966, 515) caustic audit reported, the Record notched up ‘depressingly few’ citations in overseas journals or books. In correspondence with Butlin, Reg Holder, a one-time Secretary of the Society, ‘wondered’ whether the influence of the journal on policy was greater or less. He mooted that in the past the influence of the Record ‘was rather more obvious and more direct’, today it has ‘to be filtered through more minds’.¹⁰ He added that he found reading the journal ‘hard going’.

Undeterred, under Downing’s stewardship, eminent economists like Brian Reddaway, Colin Clark, James Meade, Donald MacDougall and Nicholas Kaldor had submitted articles to the Record. One remarkable issue, published in April 1957, featured a co-authored article by Meade and Eric Russell on the wage and cost dynamics of the Australian economy followed by a brief note by Joan Robinson on Swan’s growth model that had appeared in the previous issue. Another important contribution was Max Corden’s article on ‘Import Restrictions and Tariffs’ which appeared in December 1958.

Despite the putative internationalisation of the Australian economics profession that began in the 1960s, Downing still held, however, that the Record’s first duty, indeed its comparative advantage, lay in addressing Australasian economic developments and analysis rather than innovations in economic theory (Arndt 1976). While there was a certain native wisdom for the Record to capture, it came with an embarrassing provincial intolerance of submissions from abroad. As late as 1968 Arndt expressed the view that papers submitted from abroad ‘which have nothing to do with Australia’ suffered from a ‘presumption that they have been rejected by everyone else’.¹¹ A decade earlier, a paper by Takashi Negishi entitled ‘The Protection of the Infant Industry and Internal Dynamic Economies’ was greatly recommended by the eminent trade theorist Murray Kemp of the University of New South Wales (UNSW). However, it left Arndt cold. After making a determined effort to understand the paper, Arndt concluded:

The Economic Record is not the appropriate vehicle for this type of paper for which there now exists plenty of other journals with the specialised readership to which this paper is presumably addressed nor do I want to see this journal turned into one. To publish this paper as it stands would seem to me nothing more than an attempt to dazzle or humble or affront 98% of its readers.¹²

Despite Arndt’s reservations Negishi got his amended article accepted for publication in 1968. Downing himself was concerned at the ‘gulf’ between academic economics and those involved with applied economic policy. Downing had empathy for complaints about the technical nature of some articles and was ‘unhappy’ about how economic theory was becoming increasingly detached from those charged with dealing with economic problems. He called such abstract articles a form of ‘academic blight’. Downing had little time for the use of mathematics in economic analysis or the rise of econometrics or indeed game theoretic approaches in economic analysis. One expedient was to insist that every article replete with mathematical content have the author explain, in plain English, the issue it addressed, and the conclusions arrived at (Arndt 1976, 297). Eventually younger, Australian economists, facing the mantra of ‘publish or perish’, grew tired of this convention and diverted their submissions to overseas journals.

Meanwhile, by 1969, Arndt was telling Downing that he felt ‘increasingly inadequate to the job of reading everything and I doubt whether you will find anyone else to do that’.¹³ A few years later, Arndt was still likening himself ‘to a post office’, asking others to vet the manuscripts coming to him.¹⁴ Following an informal audit of the authorship of articles since he had first become editor, Downing found that, in the eight years since May 1954, Australasian professors of economics had published just 31 articles in the Record. Another 91 articles were authored by non-academics. A further 26 articles were authored by overseas academics or local public servants and bankers. While these statistics excluded commissioned surveys of the economy, it was evident, Downing concluded, that Australasian professors did not submit nearly enough articles to the Record. Downing also noted that his colleague Arndt had published four articles during that interval. During his own term as editor, Downing recorded some ten publications with the Record.¹⁵ All that latitude was about to end.

3.1. A Palace Revolution

When Downing stood down from the editorship in May 1973, the Central Council took a momentous step by adopting a new management structure. A triumvirate of editors drawn from Melbourne and the Australian National University was put in place.¹⁶ Much to Arndt’s horror the editorial board was disbanded (Scott 1990, 37).

The new editorial team were Roy Webb, Truby Williams Professor of Economics at the University of Melbourne, his colleague Alan Boxer, and Stephen Turnovsky from the ANU. This also marked a phase when the journal adopted a more international flavour; however, Webb was of the view that the Record’s composition of articles merely reflected the sources of submissions.¹⁷ Apart from keeping a more extensive record of all submissions, whether accepted or rejected, Turnovsky wanted the journal to be less provincial by attracting more contributions from abroad. Vetting of articles was now undertaken by three independent academics. Prior to 1973 approximately one-half of manuscripts that were refereed were published. After that year the ratio fell to one-third – a rate not far from the acceptance rate for the American Economic Review.

Sceptical of the new formalism creeping into economics research, Arndt made his displeasure known, egged on by the ANU economist David Bensusan-Butt who, in a satirical review article in the Record, queried the relevance of certain types of economic analysis sweeping into journals (Butt 1974). Arndt wrote to the branches of the Society informing them of the changes taking place in the Record. He pointed to the December 1974 issue of the Record as an example of these changes. Only two articles, Arndt contended, would be intelligible to the majority of members, who were neither mathematical economists nor econometricians. He bluntly put his case:

At one stroke and as a matter of deliberate editorial policy, the Economic Record has been transferred from a valuable forum for professional discussion in Australia of important issues of economic policy, the presentation of economic analysis by and for Australian economists into a publication outlet for academic producers of mathematical and econometric papers indistinguishable from similar overseas journals.¹⁸

In place of the editorial board the Council established a Publications Committee to oversee the production of the Society’s two journals as well as appoint editors. The creation of this committee and its implementation ended the long, somewhat informal, association between the Record and its editorial board.¹⁹ The Publications Committee would be headed by Norman Fisher as chair, the editors of the Record and Economic Papers, the then President of the Society, Geoff Harcourt of the University of Adelaide, and Professor David Throsby of Macquarie University.

However, the issue of the readability of the Record and the intricacies upon which it was funded would not go away. After Turnovsky and Webb stood down in 1977 the Council inquired once again as to whether the Record was really ‘serving’ the needs of its membership. The Council apparently felt that Turnovsky and Webb had erred too far towards theoretical abstraction. Following a review of the matter by the Publications Committee, the two new editors, Peter Lloyd (ANU) and Richard Snape of Monash University, put out a statement on editorial policy stressing that, since the readership were likely to be general economists rather than specialists, the main argument of an article should be comprehensive to most. The executive believed that, with this ‘new look’, the journal would command a mix of purely theoretical, empirical and policy-related articles. Theoretical and abstract articles were to include a brief introduction indicating the nature of the subject matter and a brief conclusion of their findings. Moreover, each new issue of the Record would now contain a survey article on new areas of economic theory or an analysis of some topical Australian issue.

The complaints, however, continued, with the NSW and West Australian branches pointing out that there was too much mathematical content within articles appearing in the journal. Max Corden, the President of the Society during the years 1977–80, had visited the West Australian branch to deal with a groundswell of discontent over the Record that may well have precipitated that branch leaving the Society.

On his own initiative Corden undertook a forensic review of the journal’s contents which addressed the issue of its readability; he described ‘the problem’ with the Record as one of ‘the market versus mathematics’ (Scott 1990, 82–7). The whole episode encapsulated in a way the existential problem facing the Society; that is, how to reconcile the wishes of town and gown. Corden’s recommendation to the Publications Committee was that the Record focus on producing policy-relevant and survey-type articles and reject theoretically esoteric and mathematical submissions. Authors with highly abstract work should be encouraged to send their work to overseas journals, which would show the worth of Australian economists. Corden’s advice was not acted upon.

Just a few years later, Peter Jonson, an economist with the Reserve Bank of Australia, undertook his own audit of the contents of the Record over the period 1967–82. In an address to the NSW branch of the Society, entitled ‘Some Thoughts on the Relevance of Australian Economics’, he found that too much of the Record was given over to esoterica, or what he called ‘less relevant articles’. Out of 458 articles covered, he classified 303 as esoteric (66%).²⁰ The remaining articles, some 97 in number, were on inflation and unemployment (18), wage determination and industrial relations (8), Australia’s long-term growth performance (23), monetary and fiscal policy (32) and income distribution (16).

In his own audit Corden suggested that the answer to member discontent would be to introduce a differential pricing structure which offered members the option of not receiving the Record. This had, of course, been previously mooted, but the Council was concerned that the option, if taken too far, would weaken the funding of the Record. The issue of readability and the vexations over the funding of the Record would continue until the millennium. In discussing a schedule of differential pricing for receiving the Record, Brian Parmenter, the chairman of the Publications Committee, wisecracked that some downtown members might be prepared to pay more not to receive the journal!²¹ What Parmenter did not admit, though, was that some of the older university economists could no longer comprehend some of the articles appearing in the Record. A survey of the membership of the NSW branch organised by Peter Kriesler and Peter Abelson in the late 1980s unearthed continuing resentment amongst members at having to take the Record as part of their dues. The criticisms of the Record revolved around it being too esoteric with too much maths and not enough relevance to Australian economic policy issues. Kriesler was surprised that much of this criticism came from senior academics, some of whom commented that the Record was just a pale imitation of the American generalist journals.²²

The problem was that the juxtaposition of membership fees and journal subscription led some to become hard-headed about the benefits of joining the Society. The Canberra branch complained that since membership fees subsidised the Society’s two journals, the Record and Economic Papers, it was cheaper for some just to subscribe to either journal as a non-member. Put simply, there was a price disincentive against joining the Society outright.

When the international publishing house Blackwells took over the printing and distribution of the journal at the turn of the millennium, as well as paying the Society for the rights to do so, it appeared some of the Society’s prayers had been answered. Or so it seemed.

4. Existential Challenges

Around 30 years ago, in September 1993, Bernie Fraser, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, accepted the nomination to become the next President of the Society and, in doing so, succeeded Fred Argy. At the same time, Peter Abelson from Macquarie University became the new honorary Secretary. The Society’s Treasurer at that time was John de Ridder, chief economist at Telstra, who kept an eye on the finances including membership patterns and the costs of the Society’s two journals. These three men constituted the executive for the next three years and were, along with the delegates from each branch serving on the Central Council, the key decision-makers. As the incoming President, Fraser was told by one of his backers, Rod Maddock, that he was taking the reins at a time when the Society needed to ‘rethink its role’ since it was being ‘challenged’ by a number of professional business-related societies.²³ In congratulating Fraser, Argy (1994), in his final presidential address given in 1993, made reference to the low esteem in which economists were then held by the community. This hostile sentiment was fed by the controversy over the rise of economic rationalism and its incursion into public policy-making (Coleman and Hagger 2001). It was also a time when Australia was emerging from a long and painful recession.

Argy (1994) blamed some economists for becoming too dogmatic in their views on public policy issues. He maintained that it was dangerous to be dogmatic about policy or to believe that policy was simple and straightforward, needing only forthright government action. He also argued that economists had to pay more attention to the social dimension in advancing policy proposals. Argy also alluded to the worrying sign of falling numbers in economics degree enrolments.

Fraser also received congratulations from John Macleod who had preceded Argy as President during the late 1980s. The chief economist at Conzinc Rio Tinto (CRA), Macleod offered Fraser some forthright advice:

‘The Society moves at a snail’s pace and is wracked by academics versus the rest politics. Nevertheless, it can make changes and get things done. I would advise you to continue to stamp firmly on the politicking.’

Fraser later met up with Macleod in Melbourne and recorded some of the conversation. He remarked that ‘with some exceptions’ most senior Australian economists did not put much into the Society; it was a development that would become increasingly evident in the new millennium. Macleod added that publication in the Record was not so important for promotion in the profession as perhaps it once was.²⁴ The inference here might have been that it was better to publish in North American field journals.

Privately, Fraser recorded his plans to revive the Society by bringing the academic and business streams of the profession together, and that it should aim to have greater representation in regional areas. One initiative he approved of was funding for ‘town and gown’ functions where academics and employers gathered to share their views on key employment and education outcomes. A fund was established to inquire into the employment of economists specifically surveying what employers wanted from their economics graduates.

Macleod also urged Fraser to ‘reintroduce’ the Distinguished Fellow Award which had been instigated in 1987. It was to be made to any distinguished Australian economist who had contributed to the development of economics as a discipline, including making seminal contributions such as major techniques or important theory or important applications. Macleod added that the award was well-received and that ‘we just made it with Colin Clark and Noel Butlin’.²⁵ This was a reference to the fact that Clark along with Trevor Swan had been the first recipients of the award in 1987 and not long before their deaths in 1989. Equally Noel Butlin was awarded the fellowship in 1990 just one year before his death.

Remarkably, the prize-giving panel, made up of the President, Secretary and a representative drawn from academe, as well as the private and public sectors, had made no award in 1991 nor in 1993. It was not as if Australia was bereft of eminent theorists. Max Corden, Geoff Harcourt, Bob Gregory and Fred Gruen were waiting in the wings. Sir Leslie Melville had been honoured in 1992 for his work in central banking, tariff policy and federal-state relations.

The panel had apparently and inexplicably overlooked, too, the contributions of the former Governor of the Reserve Bank, H. C. ‘Nugget’ Coombs, for his work as a central banker as well as being the lead exponent of the ‘positive approach’ to securing full employment in the immediate postwar era. Australian scientists had not been so tardy recognising his manifold contributions by awarding him the ANZAAS medal in 1977. It looked like a golden opportunity missed by the Society, especially when, in 1988, it had honoured Sir Roland Wilson, the former Secretary of the Commonwealth Treasury. Moreover, it was well known that, while Governor, Coombs had been instrumental in having Bank officials regularly discuss with university economists the state of the Australian economy during the 1950s and 1960s. Coombs was also instrumental in inviting and accommodating eminent international economists, such as A. W. H. Phillips and Ronald Henderson to name just two, to spend a sabbatical in Australia visiting several universities.²⁶

The Society redeemed itself somewhat by recognising another illustrious economist, Fred Gruen, with the award just two months before his death. Ironically, Coombs died the same day as Gruen.

4.1. The Decline in Economics Education

One of the challenges facing the Economic Society in the 1990s was an alarming plunge in economics degree enrolments at university and numbers of students taking economics at secondary schools. In NSW, for instance, the number of students taking economics in Year 12 fell from 43% of the entire cohort to 19%. This decline in students taking tertiary entrance examinations in economics was also reflected in university enrolments in economics. In a note on a proposed study of the issue, Phil Lewis of Murdoch University drew the attention of the Central Council, pointing out that the problem seemed to begin at secondary school, citing the huge fall in the number of Year 12 NSW students doing economics. Lewis was subsequently given funding by the Central Council of the Society to inquire into the problem of the extent and causes of the decline in economics.

Lewis presented the following table stretching back to 1991 (see Table 1).

Table 1. The number of students studying for bachelor pass degrees in economics, 1991–94

	1991	1992	1993	1994	% change
UNSW	336	230	192	172	−53%
Newcastle	428	369	357	332	−22%
Macquarie	1239	1147	938	1091	−12%
La Trobe	963	753	666	603	−37%
James Cook	236	223	180	156	−34%
Queensland	672	629	557	547	−19%
Murdoch	337	295	267	192	−43%
UWA	639	601	494	363	−43%
Flinders	785	849	655	489	−38%
Tasmania	147	186	183	190	29%
ANU	335	333	266	207	−42%
TOTAL	6167	5615	4755	4342	−30%

Lewis prepared a questionnaire which was to be sent out to all identifiable economics departments within Australia. One of the propositions in the questionnaire asked whether business studies was seen as more career-focused than economics. Another asked whether students were increasingly less prepared in mathematics. The questionnaire was sent out to the heads of economics departments throughout Australia with a covering letter from Fraser. The results and analysis were later published in Economic Papers (Lewis and Norris 1997). It was only the start of the problem, and in the new millennium, a pattern emerged whereby economics degree enrolments did actually recover, but only in the Group of Eight universities. That is, the situation reverted to the case where economics degrees were once again only being offered by those older established universities, along with Macquarie, Monash, the ANU and the UNSW. In short, economics became an elite subject no longer taught at regional and other metropolitan universities (Lodewijks, Stokes, and Wright 2016).

Several university economics departments, such as at Flinders, Murdoch and Victoria University, closed down, while the department at La Trobe was reduced to one-third of its original size. Other economics departments lost their autonomy by being merged into the nucleus of a business school. Meanwhile at secondary schools, students from lower social and economic backgrounds had less opportunity to be exposed to economics because the subject was not offered, either due to dwindling demand or the lack of qualified teachers.

The popular argument explaining the decline was that it was a reaction against economic rationalism. However, there had been no such response during the stagflation-ridden 1970s when there was widespread disenchantment about the promise of economics and how problems such as poverty, discrimination against lower socioeconomic groups, and environmental damage had not been addressed.

The more prosaic explanation for the decline in economics enrolments both at school and university was attributed to the popularity of business and management education. Vocationalism was in the air. Consider that Monash University’s Faculty of Economics and Politics had only the one undergraduate degree, the redoubtable Bachelor of Economics, until 1983. It soon developed bachelor’s degrees in commerce, accounting and information systems. It was much the same at other Australian universities as the explosive growth in business schools occurred in the 1990s.

The whole issue highlighted that the Economic Society had been rather lax in both recruiting students into the Society and, more importantly, promoting economics education in high schools. Although it had taken an earlier lead in both areas it never really pursued either matter energetically.

5. The End of Australian Economics?

Students’ disengagement with economics of the 1990s combined with an altogether more invidious problem which spelt a direct challenge to the Society. The Dawkins federal reforms of higher education that had begun in 1989 with the introduction of the Higher Education Contribution charge had unleashed competitive forces within the sector. Not only was there now greater competition within universities for student enrolments, but also the focus on research excellence meant that universities began to attract academic talent from overseas. This spelt a move to the full-blown internationalisation of the local economics profession. It meant that Australian universities would recruit overseas-trained economists with established publication records; this would raise the research profile of the hosting economics departments. Thus, it became an imperative for the elite Australian universities to maintain their research excellence in order to be attractive to full fee-paying international students. It also meant that this overseas talent had perhaps no great interest in Australian economic problems nor indeed the Society itself. In an age of easy global reach, thanks to the internet and platforms such as Zoom, university economists looked excitedly abroad for inspiration and collaboration opportunities. There is little doubt that the proportion of university economists who are members of the Society has fallen markedly. Those academic economists who are members are more likely to be long-time members of the profession. This is not the case, however, with the Royal Economic Society where, in 2023, out of a current membership of 3500 some 41% were academics and another 15% students.²⁷ The Canadian Economic Association boasts 1400 members, most of whom are university staff.²⁸ One response was to raise the perennial matter of whether the Society should move in line with other professions and establish some form of formal legal status for its members. Invariably, the matter would be discussed at Central Council meetings before being referred to a sub-committee, as it was at the January 1964 meeting of the Council.²⁹

This internationalisation of local economics expertise had another twist in store for Australian economics. In 2014 the Record was downgraded after a journal ranking exercise; this was orchestrated by the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) which had retained the journal rankings initially laid down by the federal government’s Excellence in Research Australia. Since economists in Australia’s top economics departments were persuaded only to publish in top-tier ranked field journals it meant that the Record was, as a generalist journal, bypassed. Another obstacle was that ambitious economists would use data that was more likely to cater to North American audiences. Moreover, young academics were told by their deans that promotion would only come from publishing in these top-tier ranked journals.

Despite representations made by the Economic Society to the ABDC, arguing that it was one of the longstanding journals in economics and that it fostered research on Australian economic issues, the Council was not for turning.

In truth, the relegation of the Record from the top tier was inevitable because it ranked poorly in the REPEC and Scimago journal rankings. Indeed, both agencies now rank the Record below the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics. Not long therefore into the new millennium one could well agree with William Coleman’s (2014, 290) chilling assessment that ‘Australian economics is at an end’. By that he meant the end of a national or Australian idiosyncratic approach to economics. It was a little reminder that the Economic Society, too, needed to quickly reinvent itself or perhaps face the same fate.

It responded almost immediately by encouraging more women into the Society by creating and fostering the Women in Economics Network. This was so successful in boosting membership and giving new momentum to the Society that the Royal Economic Society moved to create a similar body in Britain. For the past six years women have taken leadership positions within the Society and more recognition has been given to women economists by being awarded Distinguished Fellow status. Another response to this change in membership has been that the last three Presidents of the Society have been public and private sector economists.

The Society also began to reach out to young public and private sector economists based in the cities. Another initiative was to establish a National Economic Panel featuring a mix of academic and private sector economists discussing a range of contemporary economic issues. While these initiatives improved the Society’s finances and relevance it still did not address the fact that most local university economists saw little value in becoming members of the Economic Society. Being provincial, as it were, still came with a price.

6. Conclusion

In 2024 the Record and Economic Papers will both become paperless and be made available free to all members of the Society with the subscription fee waived.³⁰ It marks the end of a problem that had plagued and divided the Society right up to the 1990s. The Record still amply meets its original ambition of publishing applied economic research relevant to Australia; nor does it ever suffer from a dearth of submissions. There is no doubt, too, that the Society will reach its 100th anniversary. It has considerable financial resources to make some serious celebration of it, unlike 2000, when its 75th anniversary passed without much notice.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 P. Abelson, ‘What’s in a name’, Economic Society files 1994, GBF 92-80, RBA.

2 Copland to Keynes, 21/5/1934, Copland Papers, NLA.

3 Copland to Keynes, 10/9/1924, Copland Papers, NLA.

4 ‘1959 Annual Report of the Hobart Branch of the Economic Society’, University of Tasmania Archives.

5 In 1995 the Queensland branch established two categories of professional membership, associate status and professional status, depending on an applicant’s qualifications and experience.

6 Letter to D. W. Oxnam, 1957, WA Branch Papers, State Library of Western Australia.

7 Downing to Coombs, 27/2/1957, Downing Papers, UMA.

8 Reviews of the New Zealand economy would continue until 1970.

9 Arndt to Downing, 5/6/1964, Arndt Papers, NLA.

10 R. F. Holder to S. J. Butlin, 21/7/1966, NSW Branch files.

11 Arndt to A. Hall, 1/12/1968, Arndt Papers, NLA.

12 Arndt to Downing, 12/10/1966, Arndt Papers, NLA.

13 Arndt to Downing, 29/5/1969, Downing Papers, UMA.

14 Downing to Arndt, 11/3/1972, Downing Papers, UMA.

15 ‘Professors in the Economic Record’, 29/5/1962, Arndt Papers, NLA.

16 Arndt to R. Webb, 1/8/1973, Arndt Papers, NLA.

17 Personal comment to the author, June 2012.

18 Arndt to B. Parmenter, April 1975, Arndt Papers, NLA.

19 R. H. Scott to Arndt, 1974, Arndt Papers, NLA.

20 External liaison lectures and addresses, P. D. Jonson, RD 85-00506, RBA.

21 I owe this reference to Ian McDonald who mentioned it in his speech accepting his Distinguished Fellow Award at the dinner for the Australian Conference of Economists in Brisbane in July 2023.

22 Communication with Peter Kriesler, 10/9/2023.

23 Maddock to Fraser, 26/7/1993, Correspondence, diaries and speeches, GBF 92-80, RBA.

24 ‘Economic Society notes on a talk with John Macleod,’ 11/10/1993, GBF 92-80, RBA.

25 J. Macleod to B. Fraser, 4/10/1993, GBF 92-80, RBA.

26 In 1995 the eminent Australian medical scientist Derek Denton along with the backing of Tim Rowse, Coombs’s biographer, nominated him for the Nobel prize for economic science. They based their nomination on Coombs’s advocacy of a Keynesian approach in promoting full employment for open economies, and his thought on central banking and his work on the husbandry of scarce resources. Denton Papers, University of Melbourne Archives.

27 Information from Iara de Menezes, finance office, RES, June 2023.

28 Information from Sonya Marion, executive officer, CEA, June 2023.

29 Minutes of the Central Council meeting of the ESANZ, January 1964, NSW Branch records.

30 Of course some academic economists would have seen no point in joining the Society when they already had access to both journals through their university library.