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  1. Home
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  3. The Cambridge Economic History of Australia
  • Cited by 2
  • Edited by Simon Ville, University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Glenn Withers, Australian National University, Canberra
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
September 2014
Print publication year:
2014
Online ISBN:
9781107445222
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CHO9781107445222
Subjects:
Economics, History, Economic Development and Growth, Economic History
Information

Book description

Australia's economic history is the story of the transformation of an indigenous economy and a small convict settlement into a nation of nearly 23 million people with advanced economic, social and political structures. It is a history of vast lands with rich, exploitable resources, of adversity in war, and of prosperity and nation building. It is also a history of human behaviour and the institutions created to harness and govern human endeavour. This account provides a systematic and comprehensive treatment of the nation's economic foundations, growth, resilience and future, in an engaging, contemporary narrative. It examines key themes such as the centrality of land and its usage, the role of migrant human capital, the tension between development and the environment, and Australia's interaction with the international economy. Written by a team of eminent economic historians, The Cambridge Economic History of Australia is the definitive study of Australia's economic past and present.

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Contents

Page 2 of 2

Contents
  • 16 - The labour market
    pp 351-372
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter examines the sustaining role of business cooperation in a small, remote economy, and the rich sources of social capital. It compares the differing pattern of business across the colonies and between city and bush, and examines the growth of firms in manufacturing. The rapid mid-century expansion in the Australian colonies provided opportunities and challenges for business. The pastoral boom that began in the 1830s and the gold rush of the 1850s motivated rapid increases in exports, immigration, per capita incomes, and transportation. The chapter interrogates major public forms of enterprise, and addresses the question of Aboriginal enterprise. Finally, the chapter investigates an important comparative question, the degree to which Australian enterprise shared in the movement towards a more scientific and generalisable approach to the practice of management that was starting to take hold in several nations towards the end of the 19th century, particularly the United States, Britain and Japan.
  • 17 - The service economy
    pp 373-394
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The Australian colonies evolved a government-centred model of infrastructure provision that was novel and, by the standards of the times, reasonably effective in supplying a broad range of infrastructure services. This chapter surveys existing interpretations and explanations of the role government played in infrastructure development in the Australian colonies, especially rural rail, providing explanations that blend efficiency, path dependence and, ultimately, vulnerability to rent seeking. By international standards, the Victorian commission model was an important innovation, giving rise to Andre Metin's famous descriptor, 'socialism without doctrine'. As with transport, the economic and social case for investment in communications sprang from the 'tyranny of distance'. The history of rail in the 19th century shows considerable vacillation between government and private roles; thus, some explanation is needed of why the public ownership model, even if initially contingent and accidental, 'stuck' and spread in the Australian colonies.
  • 19 - Microeconomic reform
    pp 419-437
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Capital markets describe the set of arrangements that match borrowers to lenders. Sometimes the arrangement is direct, sometimes it takes place through an intermediary like a bank, and sometimes it takes place through a market like the stock market. This chapter deals with such external financing of expenditure in Australian history while noting that governments, households and businesses also finance much of their expenditure internally. Over the period 1788-1860 Australia developed a financial system well adapted to its economic structure. The Great Depression experience of the 1930s played a formative role, not because of the collapse of financial institutions, but because governments formed a view that they needed stronger tools to manage the economy more effectively. Australian corporate borrowing surged after liberalisation but has subsequently stabilised, with the gearing ratio of debt to equity rising from about 0.45 to more than 1 in the 1980s before falling sharply and stabilising at about 0.5.
  • 20 - The evolution of Australian macroeconomic strategy since World War 2
    pp 438-462
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The range and volume of local manufactures increased over time, but, in the 19th century, the natural resource sectors were the prime drivers of Australia's economic performance. This chapter explores the growth in employment, value of production and labour productivity of different industries. Nineteenth-century development laid a substantial foundation for industrialisation, manufacturing's share of GDP stood at around 12 per cent in 1901. The direction of technological change, until the 1970s, favoured high-volume production of standardised machinery, in particular, the capital-intensive mass production of standardised components to narrow tolerances, which also provided economies at the assembly stage. Consumer spending on durables began to increase in the 1920s with the introduction of more mass-produced and affordable items, beginning with the motor vehicle and household electrical goods, such as jugs, toasters and radios. Industrialisation added a range of new, technically sophisticated industries, including consumer goods, producer goods and intermediate materials, to the industrial base established by Federation.
  • 21 - A statistical narrative: Australia, 1800–2010
    pp 465-488
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Economic development has been a focus of much government policy throughout Australia's history. This chapter examines some of the major aspects of public policy in Australia between the late 19th century and the immediate years following World War 2. It focuses on major policy decisions relating to international trade, labour, immigration, competition, rural production and management of the economy during wartime. During the second half of the 19th century, Australia yielded vast wealth from natural resources. There were large discoveries of minerals, most notably those of alluvial gold in Victoria from 1851 onwards, but also copper in South Australia and gold in other colonies, in particular Western Australia towards the end of the century. Customs and excise duties were to become almost the federal government's sole revenue source for the first 10 years of Federation, and a major source in the years leading to World War 2.
  • 22 - Wealth and welfare
    pp 489-510
  • View abstract

    Summary

    In the 20th century a little regulated and rapidly growing labour market was transformed following the depression of the 1890s and Federation in 1901. This chapter focuses on four key aspects of the development of the Australian labour market since Federation. First are the patterns in the total labour supply as influenced by population increase, participation, hours of work and trends in labour-force composition. Second is the growth in workforce skills, as represented by the changing role and place of education, including vocational training. Third is the evolution of Australia's distinctive pattern of industrial relations, including the structure of wages. Fourth are the trends and fluctuations in average wages and unemployment. A resurgence of productivity from the microeconomic reform era of the 1980s and 1990s was dissipating by the second decade of the 21st century and was being seen as the dominant concern for future policy.
  • 23 - Property rights regimes and their environmental impacts
    pp 511-529
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The service sector has been referred to as the 'Cinderella sector' because it is one of the least understood sectors of the economy. This chapter reviews the pattern of growth and places the Australian experience within the context of broader worldwide trends. Services may range from high-skilled, knowledge-driven activities to low-skilled and low-paid occupations. The diversified nature of the service sector not only creates definitional problems, but it also makes classification for evaluation purposes difficult. The history of service development in the 19th century was one of response to the transformation of colonial agricultural economies into industrial and urban states. The pattern of employment growth, particularly in the latter half of the 20th century, reflected that of other western economies. Finally, the chapter investigates three themes, such as professionalisation, innovation and regulatory influences, all reveal more of the significance of the service sector to the economy.
  • Statistical Appendix: selected data series, 1800–2010
    pp 555-594
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter discusses some of the key geographic shifts in Australia's international economic relations in the second half of the 20th century, particularly the refocusing of investment, trade and migration towards East Asia. It then examines the main explanatory factors and analyses the consequences of the shifts, which have primarily been increased material prosperity for most of Australia's population, a greater openness of the economy and society, and the adoption of multiculturalism. The main variable affecting international economic relations is the exchange rate. In 1972 a screening process was introduced to monitor foreign investment and limit takeover of Australian companies. The FIRB was established in 1975, and the screening process was tightened under successive governments. In 1983 the FIRB rejection rate doubled. Economic liberalisation in Australia and New Zealand was accompanied by deeper trans-Tasman integration through the 1982 CER Agreement.
  • References
    pp 595-656
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Over the past 30 years governments in Australia introduced a set of policies that have come to be known as microeconomic reform. This chapter provides an overview of main reforms and rationales. It describes a major area of reform, and evidence on specific effects of that reform, roughly in the sequence that the reforms occurred. Political economy has a major role in most accounts of the introduction of microeconomic reform in the 1980s and early 1990s. In particular, several factors assisted the federal Labor government of this period to introduce reforms. The reforms to regulation of the finance sector in Australia had been primarily implemented to improve the capacity to manage the macroeconomy. The chapter discusses agricultural sector, manufacturing industry, government sector, transport sector, communications sector, utilities sector, competition policy and labour market in Australia. Finally, it presents an overall assessment of the effects of microeconomic reform.

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