The Rise and Fall and Rise (?) of Economic History in Australia

In this chapter, we examine the history of economic history in Australia. We trace its evolution from its English-influenced roots through its concern with colonial development, business history, cliometrics, comparative studies and, more recently, Asian topics. The field emerged in the early-1900s, with rapid expansion after the Second World War through free-standing economic history departments at several leading Australian universities. From the 1990s, a more corporatist approach to university management contributed to a decline in Australian economic history and, in particular, cliometric work. In the 1990s and early-2000s, the free-standing departments were all closed, and the hiring of economic historians virtually ceased. In the past decade and a half, there has been something of a revival, with economic history increasingly again reemerging in both history and economics departments. Over this period, the discipline has developed supportive institutional infrastructure, including scholarly societies, an annual conference, and an academic journal. This infrastructure proved robust and adaptive during the period of department closures and has again expanded over the past decade. In addition to examining the history of the discipline, we also look at some challenges for the future, focussing on the collection of still unextracted historical data and its usefulness in addressing various topics.