Flocks, crops and rocks: Australian economic history since 1788 - Syllabus
(Class leader: David Meredith)
Seminar 1: Australian economic growth in comparative perspective
What is being measured when we refer to ‘economic growth’? How do we know about
historical economic growth in Australia? How did economic historians explain Australian
economic growth before there were estimates of historical National Income for Australia?
Butlin’s 1962 estimates, later revised by Haig, and turned into international comparable form
by Maddison, revealed Australia as the world’s richest country in 19th century: was this a
surprise and how plausible was it? What use have economic historians of Australia made of
historical National Income estimates since the 1960s? Is real GDP per head a proxy for living
standards and well-being?
Broadberry, Stephen and Douglas A. Irwin. 2007. ‘Lost exceptionalism? Comparative income
and productivity in Australia and the UK, 1861-1948’. Economic Record, 83, No. 262,
262-74
Butlin, N.G. 1958. ‘The shape of the Australian economy, 1861-1900’. Economic Record, 34,
No. 67, 10-29
Butlin, N.G. 1959. ‘Some structural features of Australian capital formation, 1861-1938/39’.
Economic Record, 35, No. 72, 389-415
Butlin, N.G. 1962. Australian domestic product, investment and foreign borrowing 18611938/39. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Butlin, N.G. 1964. Investment in Australian economic development, 1861-1900. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press
Butlin, N.G. 1986. ‘Contours of the Australian economy 1788-1860’. Australian Economic
History Review, 26 (2) 96-125
Butlin, N.G. and W.A. Sinclair. 1986. ‘Australian gross domestic product 1788-1860:
estimates, sources and methods’. Australian Economic History Review, 26 (2) 126-47
Greasley, D. and L. Oxley. 1998. ‘A tale of two Dominions: comparing the macroeconomic
records of Australia and Canada since 1870’. Economic History Review, 51 (2) 294-318
Greasley, D. and L. Oxley, 1997. ‘Segmenting contours: Australian economic growth 18281913’. Australian Economic History Review, 37, 39-53
Haig, Bryan. 1989. ‘International comparisons of Australian GDP in the 19th century’.
Review of Income and Wealth, 35 (2) 151-62
Haig, Bryan. 2001. ‘New estimates of Australian GDP: 1861-1948/49’. Australian Economic
History Review, 41 (1) 1-34
Kendrick, J.W. 1970. ‘The historical development of national-income accounts’, History of
Political Economy, 2, 284-315
Maddison, Angus. 2006. The world economy. Volume 1: a millennial perspective; Volume 2:
historical statistics. Paris: OECD
Maddison, Angus. 2007. Contours of the world economy, 1-2030 AD: essays in macro-
economic history. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Maddison, Angus. 2010. Historical statistics of the world economy: 1-2008. Groningen
Growth and Development Centre, www.ggdc.net/maddison
McLean, Ian W. 2007. ‘Why was Australia so rich?’ Explorations in Economic History, 44 (4)
635-56
McLean, Ian W., and Jonathan J. Pincus. 1983. ‘Did Australian living standards stagnate
between 1890 and 1940?’ Journal of Economic History, 43 (1) 193-202
McLean, Ian W., and Alan M. Taylor. 2003. ‘Australian growth: a Californian perspective’. In
Dani Rodrik (editor) In search of prosperity: analytic narratives on economic growth.
Princeton, Princeton University Press, 23-52
Snooks, G.D. 1994. Portrait of the family within the total economy: a study of long-run
dynamics, Australia 1788-1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Studenski, P. 1958. The income of nations: theory, measurement and analysis: past and
present: a study in applied economics and statistics. 2 vols. New York: New York
University Press
Vanoli, A. 2005. A history of national accounting. Washington DC: IOS Press.
Seminar 2: The global economy and Australia
Australia was invaded by British forces five years after the end of the War of American
Independence and one year before the French Revolution. It was also at the start of Britain’s
Industrial Revolution. This proved propitious timing: the British settlement of Australia
coincided with the growth and development of the international economy. Why did the
international economy expand and how were the Australian colonial economies eventually
integrated into it? What role did Australia play in the world economy in the nineteenth century
and was Australia an example of an ‘international division of labour’?
Bloomfield, Arthur I. 1968. Patterns of fluctuations in international investment before 1914.
Princeton Essays in International Finance, No. 21. Princeton: Princeton University Press
Cottrell, P.L. 1975. British overseas investment in the nineteenth century. London: Macmillan
Denoon, Donald. 1983. Settler capitalism: the dynamics of dependent development in the
southern hemisphere. Oxford: Clarendon Press
Edelstein, Michael. 1982. Overseas investment in the age of high imperialism, the United
Kingdom, 1850-1914. New York: Columbia
Findlay, Ronald and Kevin H. O’Rourke. 2007. Power and plenty: trade, war and the world
economy in the second millennium. Princeton: Princeton University Press
Foreman-Peck, James. 1983. A history of the world economy: international economic
relations since 1850. Brighton: Wheatsheaf
Hall, A.R. (editor) 1968. The export of capital from Britain, 1870-1914. London: Methuen
Hall, A.R. 1963. The London capital market and Australia, 1870-1914. Canberra: Australian
National University Press
Harley, C.K. (editor) 1996. The integration of the world economy 1850-1914. 2 volumes.
London: Edward Elgar
Hatton, Timothy J. and Jeffrey G. Williamson. 1998. The age of mass migration. Causes and
economic impact. New York: Oxford University Press
Kenwood, A.G., and A.L. Lougheed. 1983. The growth of the international economy 18201980: an introductory text. London: Allen and Unwin
Lewis, W.A. 1978. Growth and fluctuations, 1870-1913. Boston: Allen and Unwin
Lougheed, A.L. 1988. Australia in the world economy. Ringwood, Victoria: McPhee
Gribble/Penguin Books
Maddison, Angus. 1991. Dynamic forces in capitalist development, a long-run comparative
view. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Offer, Avner. 1989. The First World War: an agrarian interpretation. Oxford: Clarendon Press
Rosenberg, N. and L.E. Birdzell. 1986. How the West grew rich: the economic transformation
of the industrial world. London: Tauris
Willcox, Walter F. 1929. International migrations, vol. I, statistics. New York: National
Bureau of Economic Research
Woodruff, William. 1966. The impact of western man: a study of Europe’s role in the world
economy, 1750-1960. London: Macmillan
Seminar 3: Natural resources
This seminar considers the implications of exploitation of natural resources in Australian
economic history. Land-intensive products – wool, wheat, meat, dairy – were at the centre of
Australia’s export earnings in the nineteenth century, supplemented by mineral discoveries
(coal, copper, gold, tin, silver, lead). How did the development of these commodities for
export impact on indigenous Australian economy and society? Conquest gave settlers
undreamt of amounts of land and sea but they needed to work out how to extract value from
their new possession. Their aim was to find commodities to sell in the world market, but what
characteristics would such commodities have to possess? Wool and gold were highly
successfully but did this make the export base dangerously narrow? Could these export staples
guarantee economic growth? Would their very abundance lead to a ‘resources curse’?
Blainey, Geoffrey. 1963/2003. The rush that never ended: a history of Australian mining. 5th
edition. Carlton, Victoria: Melbourne University Press
Burley, K.H. 1961. ‘The organisation of the overseas trade in New South Wales coal, 18601914’. Economic Record, 37, No. 79, 371-81
Butlin, N.G. 1964. ‘Growth in a trading world: the Australian economy heavily disguised’.
Business Archives and History, 4
Cashin , P. and C.J. McDermott. 2002. ‘Riding on the sheep’s back: examining Australia’s
dependence on wool exports’. Economic Record , 78 , 249 –63
Davies, M. 1985. ‘Blainey revisited: mineral discovery and the business cycle in South
Australia’. Australian Economic History Review, 25, 112-128
Duncan, R. 1962. ‘The Australian export trade with the United Kingdom in refrigerated beef,
1880-1940’. Business Archives and History, 2
Fogarty, Duncan. 1966. ‘The staple approach and the role of government in Australian
economic development’. Business Archives and History, 6, 34-52
Frost, A. 1981. ‘New South Wales as terra nullius: the British denial of Aboriginal land rights.
Historical Studies, 19
Goodall, Helen. 1996. Invasion to embassy: land in Aboriginal politics in New South Wales
1770-1992. Sydney: Allen and Unwin
Greasley, D. and J.B. Madsen. 2010. ‘Curse and boon: natural resources and long-run growth
in currently rich economies’. Economic Record, 86, No. 274, 311-328
Hallam, S.J. 1975. Fire and hearth: a study of Aboriginal usage and European usurpation in
South-Western Australia. Canberra: Institute of Aboriginal Studies
Jackson, R.V. 1977. Australian economic development in the nineteenth century. Canberra:
Australian National University Press
Lougheed, A.L. 1968. ‘International trade theory and economic growth’. Australian Economic
History Review, 8 (1)
McCarty, J.W. 1964. ‘The staple approach in Australian economic history’. Business Archives
and History, 4, 1-22
McCarty, J.W. 1973. ‘Australia as a region of settlement in the nineteenth century’. Australian
Economic History Review, 13, 148-67
McLean, Ian W. 2013. Why Australia prospered: the shifting sources of economic growth.
Princeton: Princeton University Press
Maddock, Rodney, and Ian W. McLean. 1984. ‘Supply-side shocks: the case of Australian
gold’. Journal of Economic History, 44 (4) 1047-67
Pinkstone, Brian. 1992. Global connections: a history of exports and the Australian economy.
Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service
Reynolds, Henry. 1987. Frontier: Aborigines, settlers and land. Sydney: Allen and Unwin
Rowley, C.D. 1972. The destruction of Aboriginal society. Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin
Books Australia
Schedvin, C.B. 1987. ‘The Australian economy on the hinge of history.’ Australian Economic
History Review, 20, 1, 20-39
Schedvin, C.B. 1990. ‘Staples and regions of Pax Britannica’. Economic History Review, 43
(4) 533-559
Schedvin, C.B. 2008. ‘Primary phases of Australian economic development in the twentieth
century’. Australian Economic History Review, 41, 4
Ville, Simon and Glenn Withers (editors). 2015. The Cambridge Economic History of
Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
White, Colin. 1992. Mastering risk: environment, markets and politics in Australian economic
history. Melbourne. Oxford University Press.
Seminar 4: Demography: ‘Populate or perish!’
Australia has a small population living on a very large land mass. Models of the Australian
population indicate a steep fall between 1788 and the 1840s as the indigenous population
declined faster than the invading population could increase. From the 1840s the population
grew continuously and in some periods very rapidly, with significant contributions from net
immigration. Immigration was both encouraged and restricted (the ‘White Australia Policy’).
In nineteenth century there was a marked sex imbalance in the white population as a result of
convict transportation. Immigration of free settlers tended to perpetuate this bias, at a
declining level. Immigration remained an integral part of the Australian economy and
development strategy, though the rationale for immigration changed after the Second World
War. Here we examine the implications of population growth and structure, and mass
immigration for real wages and economic growth and consider whether there were winners
and losers.
Banjerjee, R. 2012. ‘Population growth and endogenous technological change: Australian
economic growth in the long run’. Economic Record, 88, 214-228
Birrell, R., D. Hill and J.W. Nevile (editors) 1984. Populate and perish? The stresses of
population growth in Australia. Sydney: Fontana
Butlin, N.G. 1983. Our original aggression: Aboriginal populations of South-eastern Australia
1788-1850. Sydney: Allen and Unwin
Butlin, N.G. 1993. Economics and the dreamtime, a hypothetical history. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press
Collins, J. 1988. Migrant hands in a distant land: Australia’s post-war immigration. Sydney:
Pluto Press
Curthoys, Anne and A. Markus. 1978. Who are our enemies? Racism and the Australian
working class. Sydney: Hale and Iremonger
Evans, R., K. Saunders and K. Cronin (editors). 1975. Exclusion, exploitation, extermination:
race relations in colonial Queensland. Sydney: ANZ Book Co.
Haines, R. and R. Shlomowitz. 1991. ‘Nineteenth century government-assisted and total
immigration from the United Kingdom to Australia: quinquennial estimates by colony’.
Journal of the Australian Population Association. 8, 1
Hall, A.R. 1963. ‘Some long period effects of kinked age distribution of the population of
Australia, 1861-1961’. Economic Record, 39, 43-52
Jupp, James. 2002/2007. From White Australia to Woomera: The story of Australian
immigration. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press
Lever-Tracy, C. and Michael Quinlan. 1988. A divided working class: ethnic segmentation
and industrial conflict in Australia. London. Routledge
Markus, A. 1979. Fear and hatred: purifying Australia and California, 1850-1901. Sydney:
Hale and Iremonger
Nicholas, Stephen (editor) 1988. Convict workers: a reinterpretation of Australia’s past.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Oxley, Deborah. 1996. Convict maids: the forced migration of women to Australia.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Price, C.A. 1974. The great white walls are built: restrictive immigration to North America
and Australasia, 1836-1901. Canberra: Australian Institute of International Affairs,
Australian National University Press
Reynolds, Henry. 1987. Frontier: Aborigines, settlers and land. Sydney: Allen and Unwin
Rowley, C.D. 1972. The destruction of Aboriginal society. Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin
Books Australia
Schultz, R.J. 1970. ‘Immigration into Eastern Australia, 1788-1851’. Historical Studies, 14,
273-82
Williamson, Jeffrey G. 1995. ‘The evolution of global labour markets since 1830: background
evidence and hypotheses.’ Explorations in Economic History, 32 (2)
Withers, G. 1977. ‘Immigration and economic fluctuations: an application to late nineteenth
century Australia.’ Australian Economic History Review, 17 (2)
Yarwood, A.T. 1964. Asian immigration to Australia: the background to exclusion 1896-1923.
Melbourne: Melbourne University Press
Yarwood, A.T. and M.J.Knowling.1982. Race relations in Australia: a history. Sydney:
Methuen
Seminar 5: domestic economy and urbanization
Half a century before the Australian colonies found an export staple a domestic economy
centred around towns had developed; from the mid-nineteenth century, when wool and gold
dominated exports and population growth was relatively rapid, the Australian colonies
continued to exhibit an unusually high level of urbanization, particularly the two large port
cities of Melbourne and Sydney; agglomeration economies were evident; most people found
their livelihoods in the domestic economy; what was the contribution of the domestic
economy to Australian economic growth? And what were the inter-connections between the
domestic economy and the international one?
Butlin, N.G. 1964. Investment in Australian economic development 1861-1900. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press
Butlin, N.G., A. Barnard and J.J. Pincus 1982. Government and capitalism: public and private
choice in twentieth century Australia. Sydney: Allen and Unwin
Cloher, D.U. 1975. ‘A perspective on Australian urbanization’. In J.M. Powell and M.
Williams (editors) Australian space, Australian time. Melbourne: Oxford University Press,
104-49
Daley , J. and A. Lancy. 2011. Investing in Regions: Making a Difference. Melbourne:
Grattan Institute
Davidson, B.R. 1982. ‘A benefit cost analysis of the New South Wales railway system’.
Australian Economic History Review, 22, 127-50
Davison, G. 1970. ‘Public utilities and the expansion of Melbourne in the 1880s’. Australian
Economic History Review, 10, 168-89
Davison, G. 1978. The rise and fall of marvellous Melbourne. Carlton, Victoria: Melbourne
University Press
Dingle, T. and S. O’Hanlon. 2009. ‘From manufacturing zone to lifestyle precinct: economic
restructuring and social change in inner Melbourne, 1971–2001’. Australian Economic
History Review , 49 (1)
Fitzgerald, S. 1992. Sydney 1842–1992. Sydney: Hale and Iremonger
Frost , L. and Tony Dingle. 1995. ‘Infrastructure, technology and change: a historical
perspective’. In P. N. Troy (editor), Technological Change and the City. Sydney :
Federation Press
Frost, L. 1991. The New Urban Frontier: Urbanisation and City-Building in Australasia and
the American West before 1910. Sydney: UNSW Press
Frost, L. 1998. ‘The contribution of the urban sector to Australian economic development
before 1914’. Australian Economic History Review , 38 (1)
Frost, L. and Tony Dingle. 1995. ‘Sustaining suburbia: an historical perspective on Australia’s
growth’. In P.N. Troy (editor.), Australian Cities: Issues, Strategies and Policies for Urban
Australia in the 1990s. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press
Frost, L.E. 1986. ‘A reinterpretation of Victoria’s railway construction boom of the 1880s’.
Australian Economic History Review, 26, 40-55
Glaeser , E. 2011. Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer,
Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier. New York : Penguin Press
Glynn, S. 1970. Urbanization in Australian history, 1788-1900. Melbourne: Nelson
McCarty, J.W. 1970. ‘Australian capital cities in the nineteenth century’, Australian Economic
History Review, 10, 107-37
Mein Smith , P. and L. Frost. 1994. ‘ Suburbia and infant death in late nineteenth and early
Adelaide’. Urban History, 21, 2
Merrett , D. T. 1977. ‘Economic growth and well-being: Melbourne 1870–1914: a comment’.
Economic Record , 53 (142).
Schedvin, C.B. and J.W. McCarty (editors) 1974. Urbanization in Australia: the nineteenth
century. Sydney: Sydney University Press
Silberberg, R. 1975. ‘Rates of return on Melbourne land investment, 1880-1892.’ Economic
Record, 51, 203-17
Silberberg, R. 1977. ‘The Melbourne land boom’. Australian Economic History Review, 17,
117-30
Stapledon, N. 2012. ‘Trends and cycles in Sydney and Melbourne house prices from 1880 to
2011’. Australian Economic History Review, 52 (3).
Statham, Pamela (editor). 1989. The origins of Australia’s capital cities. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press
Troy P. N. (editor) 2000. A History of European Housing in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press
Seminar 6: industrialisation – or at least, manufacturing
What was the role of manufacturing industry and associated utilities in an economy dependent
on the exploitation and export of natural resources, renewable or not? Would large domestic
industries by built on processing and manufacturing products from these natural resources?
The ‘flocks, crops and rocks’ explanation of Australian economic growth gives little emphasis
to industrialisation and some economic historians argue that Australia never industrialised.
Manufacturing was regarded as being dependent on government assistance and trade
protection as well as having low levels of productivity. Manufacturing started in 1788; the
first steam engine was erected in Sydney in 1815; yet growth of manufacturing was slow until
the First World War. It expanded in the Second World War and for the next three decades it
underpinned employment and the growth of urbanisation. Yet by 1970 it was in a decline
which has continued to the present. Why did this happen and what have been the
consequences of this restructuring? In the final analysis, did the period of industrial
expansion, particularly after Federation, represent an aberration or a lost opportunity?
Beaton, Lynn. 1982. ‘The importance of women’s paid labour: women and work in World
War II’. In M. Bevege, M. Jones and C. Shute (editors), Worth her salt: women and work in
Australia. Sydney: Hale and Iremonger
Beresford, Melanie and Prue Kerr. 1980. ‘A turning point for Australian capitalism, 19421952’. In E.L. Wheelwright and Ken Buckley (editors). Essays in the political economy of
Australian capitalism, volume 4. Sydney: Australia and New Zealand Book Co.
Birrell, R. 1988. ‘Employment and the occupational system since the Second World War’. In
James Jupp (editor), The Australian people: an encyclopedia of the nation, its people and
their origins. Sydney: Angus and Robertson
Boehm, E.A. 1979. Twentieth century economic development in Australia. Second edition.
Melbourne: Longman Cheshire
Brash, Donald T. 1966. American investment in Australian industry. Canberra: Australian
National University Press
Butlin, N.G. 1986. Bicentennial perspective of Australian economic growth. Canberra:
Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand, Inaugural Lecture
Butlin, S.J. 1955. War economy, 1939-1942. Canberra: Australian War Memorial
Butlin, S.J. and C.B. Schedvin. 1977. War economy, 1942-1945. Canberra: Australian War
Memorial
Cochrane, Peter. 1980. Industrialization and dependence: Australia’s road to economic
development, 1870-1939. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press
Curthoys, Anne, S. Eade, and P. Spearritt (editors). 1975. Women at work. Canberra:
Australian Society for the Study of Labour History
Davidson, F.G. 1969. The industrialisation of Australia. 4th edition. Melbourne: Melbourne
University Press
Davidson, F.G. and B.R. Stewardson. 1974. Economics and Australian industry. Melbourne:
Longman
Forster, Colin. 1953. ‘Australian manufacturing in the war of 1914-18’. Economic Record, 29,
211-30
Forster, Colin. 1964. Industrial development in Australia, 1920-30. Canberra: Australian
National University Press
Gregory, R.G., and Butlin, N.G. (editors). 1988. Recovery from the Depression: Australia and
the world economy in the 1930s. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press
Haig, B.D. 1975. ‘Manufacturing output and productivity, 1910-1948-49’. Australian
Economic History Review, 15, 143-54
Hughes, Helen. 1964. The Australian iron and steel industry, 1848-1962. Melbourne.
Melbourne University Press
Hunter, Alex (editor). 1963. The economics of Australian industry, studies in environment and
structure. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press
Inkster, I. 1990. ‘Intellectual dependency and the sources of invention: Britain and the
Australian technological system in the nineteenth century’. In G. Hollister-Short and A.J.L.
Frank (editors). History of technology, volume 12. London: Mansell
Inkster, I. and J. Todd. 1988. ‘Support for the scientific enterprise, 1850-1900’. In R.W. Home
(editor). Australian science in the making. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press
Johnson, Penelope. 1986. ‘Gender, class and work: the Council of Action for Equal Pay and
the equal pay campaign in Australia during World War Two’. Labour History, 50, 132-46
Linge, G.J.R. 1979. Industrial awakening: a geography of Australian manufacturing, 1788 to
1890. Canberra: Australian National University Press
Pinkstone, Brian. 1992. Global connections: a history of exports and the Australian economy.
Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service
Schedvin, C.B. 1987. Shaping science and industry: a history of Australia’s Council for
Scientific and Industrial Research, 1926-1949. Sydney: Allen and Unwin
Stutchbury, Michael. 1984. ‘The Playford legend and the industrialisation of South Australia’.
Australian Economic History Review, 24
Seminar 7: Policies and institutions: ‘Flocks, crops, rocks – and shocks’
Australia was frequently subjected to economic shocks, and it has been argued that major
shocks caused policy and institutional shifts. Here we examine the impact of changing
policies and institutions on economic growth from the mid-nineteenth to the early twenty-first
centuries. In Australian economic historiography much attention has been given to the reforms
of the early twentieth century that made Australia something of a ‘social laboratory’, in
particular the system of arbitration and gendered minimum wages. Since the 1980s these have
been among the institutions undergoing radical change. Can the Australian experience throw
any light on the relationship between institutional development and economic growth?
Alford, Katrina. 1986. ‘Colonial women’s employment as seen by nineteenth century
statisticians and twentieth century economic historians’. Labour History, 51, 1-10
Anderson, G. and M. Quinlan. 2008. ‘The changing role of the State: regulating work in
Australia and New Zealand 1788-2007’. Labour History, 95, 111-32
Australia. 1965. Report of the Committee of Economic Enquiry [the Vernon Committee].
Canberra: Australian National University Press
Australia. 1975. Committee to advise on policies for manufacturing industry, policies for
developing manufacturing industry [the Jackson Report]. Canberra: Australian
Government Publishing Service
Australia. 1979. Report of the study group on structural adjustment. 2 volumes. [The
Crawford Report]. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service
Australia. 1992. One Nation 1992.Statement by the Prime Minister, the Honourable P.J.
Keating, 26 February 1992. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service
Bell, S. 1993. Australian manufacturing and the State: the politics of industry policy in the
post-war era. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press
Bell, S. and B. Head (editors). 1994. State, economy and public policy in Australia.
Melbourne: Oxford University Press
Butlin, N.G. 1959. ‘Colonial socialism in Australia, 1860-1900’. In Hugh G.J. Aitken (editor)
The state and economic growth. New York: Social Science Research Council.
Butlin, N.G., A. Barnard and J.J. Pincus 1982. Government and capitalism: public and private
choice in twentieth century Australia. Sydney: Allen and Unwin
Capling A. and B. Galligan. 1992. Beyond the protective State. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press
Carroll J. and R. Manne (editors). 1992. Shutdown: the failure of economic rationalism and
how to rescue Australia. Melbourne. Text Publishing Co.
Catley, B. 1996. Globalisaing Australian capitalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Forster, Colin. 1985. ‘The economic consequences of Mr Justice Higgins’. Australian
Economic History Review, 25 (2) 95-111
Garnaut, R. 1989. Australia and the North East Asia ascendancy. Canberra: Australian
Government Publishing Service
Glezer, Leon. 1982. Tariff politics: Australian policy-making 1960-1980. Carlton, Victoria:
Melbourne University Press
Gregory, R.G. 1976. ‘Some implications of the growth of the mineral sector.’ Australian
Journal of Agricultural Economics, 20, 71-91
King, S. and P. Lloyd (editors). 1993. Economic rationalism: dead end or way forward?
Sydney: Allen and Unwin
Macarthy, P.G. 1969. ‘Justice Higgins and the Harvester Judgement’. Australian Economic
History Review, 9, 17-38
McLean, Ian W. 2006. ‘Recovery from depression: Australia in the Argentine mirror 18951913’. Australian Economic History Review, 46 (3) 215-41
Merrett D., S. Corones, and D. Round. 2007. ‘The introduction of competition policy in
Australia: the role of Ron Bannerman’. Australian Economic History Review, 47, 178-99
Quiggin, J. 1996. Great expectations: microeconomic reform and Australia. Sydney: Allen and
Unwin
Rattigan, Alf. 1986. Industry assistance: the inside story. Melbourne: Melbourne University
Press
Waterman, A.C.E. 1972. Economic fluctuations in Australia 1948 to 1964. Canberra:
Australian National University Press
Whitwell, G. 1986. The Treasury line. Sydney. Allen and Unwin
Seminar 8 The services ensemble
The service sector was (and remains) the largest sector of the Australian economy from the
early nineteenth century and it has employed the majority of the workforce. In recent decades
it has become a major exporter. In an era of economic restructuring following the decline of
manufacturing it is in services that the new jobs will be found. Yet the role of services in the
economy has not received the attention from economic historians paid to natural resources
and manufacturing. In this final seminar we attempt to gain a perspective on Australian
economic growth by considering this sector in historical context and its interconnections with
the rest of the economy.
Barnard, A., N.G. Butlin and J.J. Pincus. 1977. ‘Public and private sector employment in
Australia, 1901-74’. Australian Economic Review
Bell, D. 1973. The Coming of the Post Industrial Society. London: Heinemann
Blainey, Geoffrey. 1999. A History of the AMP 1848–1998. Sydney: Allen and Unwin
Boyce , G. 2006. ‘Communicating infrastructures’. In G. Boyce, S. Macintyre and S. Ville,
(editors) How organisations connect investing in communications. Melbourne: Melbourne
University Press
Broadberry, Stephen and Douglas A. Irwin. 2007. ‘Lost exceptionalism? Comparative income
and productivity in Australia and the UK, 1861-1948’. Economic Record, 83, No. 262,
262-74
Broadberry, Stephen and Ghoshal , S. 2002. ‘From counting house to the modern office:
explaining Anglo-American productivity differences in services, 1870–1990 ’. Journal of
Economic History, 62, 4
Carnegie, G. 2009. ‘The development of accounting regulation, education and literature in
Australia, 1788–2005’. Australian Economic History Review , 49, 3, 276-301
Carter , M. 1987. ‘The service sector’. In R. Maddock and I. W. McLean (editors). The
Australian Economy in the Long Run. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press
Carter , M. and Rodney Maddock. 1987. ‘Leisure and Australian wellbeing ’. Australian
Economic History Review, 27, 30-43.
Daniels, P.W. 1993. Services Industries in the World Economy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers
Davidson J. and Spearitt, P. 2000. Holiday Business Tourism in Australia since 1870
Melbourne: Melbourne University Press
Dowie, J.A. 1970. ‘The service ensemble’. In Colin Forster (editor.) Australian Economic
Development in the Twentieth Century. Sydney: Australasian Publishing Company
Elfring, T. 1989. ‘New evidence on the expansion of service employment in advanced
economies’. Review of Income and Wealth, 35, 4
Harris, J. and McDonald, C. 2000. ‘Post-Fordism, the welfare state and personal social
services: a comparison of Australia and Britain’. British Journal of Social Work, 30, 1
Higman, B.W. (2002), Domestic service in Australia (Melbourne: Melbourne University
Press).
Inglis, K.S. 1958. Hospital and community: a history of the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
Melbourne: Melbourne University Press
Kingston, Beverley. 1994. Basket, bag and trolley: a history of shopping in Australia.
Melbourne. Oxford University Press
McLachlan, R., C. Clark, and I. Monday. 2002. Australia’s service sector: a study in diversity.
Productivity Commission Research Paper: Canberra: AusInfo
Merrett, D. T. and Simon Ville. 2013. ‘Institution building and variation in the formation of
the Australian wool market’. Australian Economic History Review, 53 , 146-66
Miles, I. and M. Boden. 2000. ‘Introduction: are services special? In M. Boden and I. Miles
(editors). Services and the knowledge-based economy. London: Continum
O’Conner, K. and P. Daniels. 2001. ‘The geography of international trade in services:
Australia and the APEC region’. Environment and Planning A, 33
Schkett, R. and Yocarini, L. 2006. ‘The shift to services employment: a review of the
literature’. Structural Change and Economic Dynamics , 17
Seltzer, Andrew. 2004. ‘Internal labour markets in the Australian banking industry: their
nature prior to World War Two and their decline’. Accounting, Business and Financial
History, 14, 3
Summers, R. 1985. ‘Services in the international economy’. In R. P. Inman (editor) Managing
the service economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Ville, Simon. 2000. The rural entrepreneurs: a history of the stock and station agent industry
in Australia and New Zealand. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press