At Heaven’s Gate

This chapter looks at the final decade of Colin Clark’s life, marked by public recognition by Australian economists of his achievements as an eminent applied economist. It came against a major illness and the decrepitude of old age. Clark felt vindicated that dire prophecies about world resource depletion and population growth had proven false and was optimistic about human ingenuity overcoming future challenges. He felt that the principal social and economic problem for future generations would be how to make cities tolerable places in which to live. His last work Regional and Urban Location (1982) expressed reservations about letting market criteria guide the location of industry and human settlements. His last attempt at an econometric model suggested a theoretical compromise between Keynes and Friedman, believing in short-term Keynesianism but that, in the long-term the size of the public sector had to be wound back. He framed the period between 1945 and 1973 as one of economic boom, propelled by trade and investment flows rather than the successful application of Keynesian economics. The chapter ends with an appraisal of his life and career.