403. A History of AARES
I’ve been a member of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society (AARES) since the early 1980s. It’s been really important to me as a way of growing networks, sharing research, learning and making friends. My friend Bill Malcolm and I have written a history of AARES.
We presented our history at the AARES conference in Canberra on 8 Feb 2024.
I originally posted a draft of the paper here and now the final version has been published by the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics. It is available here.
Nice job Dave! These types of manuscripts are priceless for many reasons and are a great addition to the hisotroy of applied economics. Thanks for taking something like this on!
Thank you Dave (and Bill) for taking the time to write a valuable overview of AARES.
Really good to see this work being done. Thanks to both of you.
Thoughts and notes from a quick reading.
I think it’s accurate to say that the ag econ department at La Trobe was folded into the economics department. Geoff E, Iain F and others were moved into economics (strictly, Economics and Finance) before I arrived, although that’s probably worth fact-checking with someone who lived through it.
Re ABARES, a couple of thoughts. First, the declining engagement (and dominance) of ABARES in AARES aligns with the declining size of the institution itself. ABARES continues to shrink, and that’s even when bringing in a number of scientists once it went from ABARE to ABARES. It now no longer even has a Chief Economist position.
This brings me to my other passing thought; throughout its history, ABARES would have an impressive number of former Chief (Research) Economists and directors etc who’ve been former AARES presidents, Distinguished Fellows etc.
Quick notes:
– Figure 3 should probably mention ABARES (rather than ABARE)
– Correct Tiho’s surname (Ancev) on p6
– Need a space between “The 1960s” in the line about UNE on p13
Thanks Michael. Very helpful.
Nice Job in converting so much into a very readable format.
I know some reading this will regard the following as self serving but here goes anyway.
First, if you are going to cite Richardson’s 2001 paper on the Reserve Price Scheme I reckon it would be relevant to also cite the paper:
Campbell, C., Gardiner, B. and Haszler, H. (1980). On the Hidden Revenue Effects of Wool Price Stabilisation in Australia: Initial Results, Australian Journal of Agricultural Economics 24(1), 1-15
This might be too much detail on a particular policy but I can confidently say that until that paper was published the Wool Corporation and Wool Council of Australia were regularly pushing for acquisition of the clip. After that paper and the publicity for its results at Geoff Miller’s agricultural marketing conference in Perth included wool of course – that sort of chattering stopped. If you are not prepared to accept my say so on that, get in touch with Bill Curran, last I heard on the NSW South Coast somewhere, if Bill is still with us. Reason for mentioning Bill is that for a ten year period from about 1976 Bill and I complemented each other as BAE/ABARE’s Wool Outlook and Wool Marketing managers respectively. FWIW I am eternally grateful I left the wool job well enough before Australia’s Wool Policy Debacle, as I call it, set in from about 1987.
Also while on wool I don’t see anything on the collapse of the RPS which has been described by Charles Massey as Australia’s biggest ever corporate collapse. Perhaps that’s because there was not much in our Journal on the collapse or the policy for dealing with the stockpile. But for a quick summary you could do worse than look at my review of Massey’s book published in the Journal in 2012. There is another paper: The Wool Debt, the Wool Stockpile and the National Interest: Did the Garnaut Committee Get it Right? b y Haszler Chisholm Edwards and Hone in the Economic Record of September 1996 that touches on these issues.
FWIW I hope to live long enough to get around to finishing my PhD on that or at least publishing it as a book if La Trobe won’t have me. On the faint chance you guys want to follow up I published the basics of the PhD in a La Trobe Economics working paper years and years ago.
Second, the other somewhat self-serving thing is you might care to comment on the profitability of the Society’s annual conferences. As you say much of the admin type work for the Society was for a long time at least done on a voluntary basis with events essentially breaking even with the help of in-kind assistanc from the varuious universities at which we held our conferences. But that changed with the Melbourne conference in 1996 which was our 40th confgerence. As it happens I was chair of the LOC for that one and with the help ofsome sponsorship we made the first profit.
So here endeth the self-serving stuff.
Thanks Henry, That’s really helpful. We’ll think about all this. The paper is about AARES, rather than the agricultural economy, but there is some overlap/spillover, of course.
I missed seeing you present this at the 2024 conference so thank you for posting it here. A great read.
Thanks Anthea.
Hi Dave and Bill,
Thank you for taking this on. I really enjoyed the presentation at the conference and reading this draft. I respect your comments that this is ‘a’ history of AARES. However, I think there is room to write to and invite input from a more diverse audience (the list of names acknowledged at the end of the document is very ‘Australian male’). Perhaps an email to some key women (e.g. the presidents mentioned) and Asian based members (e.g. those active in setting up the East Asian Branch in 2017) to invite input could strengthen the points you make about diversity on pages 8 and 9.
Thanks Nikki. Good point.
Another thought, not so self serving this time and follows Nikki’s point above. Why not have an attachment listing the Society’s principle federal office bearers — with an appropriate font woujld not take more than two pages if the list was Presidents, Secretaries, Treasurers, Editors.