Geoffrey Colin Harcourt

Geoffrey Colin Harcourt, the internationally acclaimed post-Keynesian economist, died in Sydney, Australia on the 7th of December 2021. He was born in Melbourne on the 27th of June 1931.

Geoff studied accounting and economics at the University of Melbourne, where he was exposed to Keynes and the Cambridge School, and gained first-class honours. While there, he met and married the love of his life, Joan, with whom he had four children: Wendy, Robert, Tim and Rebecca.

In 1957, he was awarded his PhD at Cambridge where he was supervised by Nicky Kaldor and Ronald Henderson. Cambridge became Geoff’s centre of gravitation, returning often, moving there permanently in 1982. Ultimately he became a Reader, until retiring in 1998, and was a Fellow at Jesus College during that time, and its President from 1988–89 and 1990–92. In between, he was a lecturer at the University of Adelaide in 1958, promoted to a professorial Chair in 1967. After his retirement from Cambridge, he was an Honorary Professor at the School of Economics at the University of New South Wales, where he spent his last decades.

Geoff received many significant awards during his life, and in 2018 he was made a Companion of the Order of Australia for his ‘eminent service to higher education as an academic economist and author, particularly in the fields of Post-Keynesian economics, capital theory and economic thought.’

Geoff was driven by a strong commitment to social justice, which also informed his academic and policy work. He had a life-long commitment to equity and equality, working towards alleviating poverty and against social and racial discrimination.

He also had a great love of sports, both as player and spectator particularly Australian football and cricket. In honour of his passion for football, most of his papers are written in four quarters.

Geoff had a gift of putting people at ease, talking to anyone, from the Crown Prince to awestruck students, displaying his mischievous sense of humour.

In over 30 books and 400 articles, Geoff had a profound impact over a wide area. In this short note, I want to focus on four of his main contributions.

First, in his important article and subsequent book on the Cambridge capital controversies (Harcourt 1969, 1972) (as the main protagonists came from Cambridge England and Cambridge MIT), Geoff provided a masterful guide to one of the most technical debates in economics. He unravelled these so that they became intelligible, with both his clear style and with humour (evident particularly in the chapter and section titles, such as the section pointing to an error by Kaldor titled ‘Excuse me, Professor Kaldor, but your slip is showing’).

Second, Geoff made major contributions to Post-Keynesian economics throughout his life — culminating in the definitive books, The Structure of Post-Keynesian Economics (Harcourt 2006) and the two volume The Oxford Handbook of Post-Keynesian Economics (Harcourt and Kriesler 2013).

Third, he also humanised economics in his many biographical essays, going behind the mask of great economists to reveal not only their economic insights but also the person that developed those insights. This is particularly apparent in his definitive biography of Joan Robinson (Harcourt and Kerr 2009 co-written with Prue Kerr).

Finally, underlying his theoretical contributions is the importance of policy, on which Geoff not only wrote copiously, but also acted by advising governments. He believed that academics in general, and economists in particular, have a duty to advocate policies which would lead to a better world. Associated with writing and advocacy was a belief there was a ‘need for direct action if other more orthodox means proved ineffective’ (Harcourt 2011, p. 124) — which Geoff displayed with his important role in Australia’s anti-Vietnam war movement.

Everyone who knew Geoff values the wonderful human being he was, as well as being a world-class economist. He has enriched the lives of everyone around him. He truly was a scholar and a gentleman, and the world is so much a better place because of Geoff.

On a personal note, Geoff was my teacher, colleague, collaborator, mentor and most importantly a very warm and dear friend. Through links forged in Cambridge, Geoff invited me into his academic and family life, and I share the immense sense of the loss at the passing of such an inspiring human being. Geoff will be greatly missed.