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Chapter 1 Introduction -- PART I: 1905-1937 The Makings of an Applied Economist -- Chapter 2 Brilliant Beginnings -- Chapter 3 Cambridge and Fabianism -- Chapter 4 Becoming the World's Economic Statistician -- Part II: 1937-1952 Australian Idyll -- Chapter 5 Great Southern Land -- Chapter 6 Forsaking Keynes -- Chapter 7 Three classic contributions -- Chapter 8 Spiritual Awakening -- Chapter 9 Two Revelations -- Chapter 10 Macroeconomics and the Pursuit of Ruralism -- Chapter 11The Tarmac Economist -- PART III: 1953-1969 A Gypsy Scholar at Oxford -- Chapter 12 Research Leadership -- Chapter 13The Man who Smashed Convention -- Chapter 14 A Critical Eye on British Economic Policy -- Chapter 15 The Grand Soothsayer -- Chapter 16 Slaying the Doomsayers -- Chapter 17 Angling for Australia -- Part IV: 1969-1989 Australia Resumed -- Chapter 18 The Monash Years -- Chapter 19 At Heaven's Gate -- Bibliography -- Index.

Economics, Keynes once wrote, can be a 'very dangerous science'. Sometimes, though, it can be moulded to further the common good though it might need a leap in mental outlook, a whole new zeitgeist to be able do do. This book is about a transformation in Australian economists' thought and ideas during the interwar period. It focuses upon the interplay between economic ideas, players and policy sometimes in the public arena. In a decade marked by depression, recovery and international political turbulence Australian economists moved from a classical orthodox economic position to that of a cautious Keynesianism by 1939. We look at how a small collective of economists tried to influence policy-making in the nineteen-thirties. Economists felt obliged to seek changes to the parameters as economic conditions altered but, more importantly, as their insights about economic management changed. There are three related themes that underscore this book. Firstly, the professionalisation of Australian economics took a gigantic leap in this period, aided in part, by the adverse circumstances confronting the economy but also by the aspirations economists held for their discipline. A second theme relates to the rather unflattering reputation foisted upon interwar economists after 1945.

That transition underlies a third theme of this book, namely, how Australian economists were emboldened by Keynes's General Theory to confidently push for greater management of economic activity. By 1939 Australian economists conceptualized from a new theoretic framework and from one which they advanced comment and policy advice. This book therefore will rehabilitate the works of Australian interwar economists, arguing that they not only had an enviable international reputation but also facilitated the acceptance of Keynes's General Theory among policymakers before most of their counterparts elsewhere.

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

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