Welcome to the School of Economics

The teaching of economics in the University began in 1901, with the first professor appointed in 1929. A separate Department of Economics was established in 1946. Former Professors in the School include Leslie Melville, Edward Shann, Brian Tew, Peter Karmel, Eric Russell, Frank Jarrett, Geoffrey Harcourt, Cliff Walsh and Jonathan Pincus.

The School of Economics is located in the Faculty of the Professions, which also includes the School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design, the School of Education, the Business School and the Law School. The current Executive Dean of the Faculty is Professor Pascale Quester.

JOIN US FOR A ROUNDTABLE SESSION WITH DR THOMAS LUBIK

The Great Recession and the Future of Central Banking

Professor Lubik will speak first on the "Great Recession".  He will lay out and discuss factors such as (i) financial innovation (ii) global imbalances (iii) (monetary) policy failure.  He will then discuss the future of central banking.  This will cover the issue of whether the "too big to fail" genie is out of the bottle, that is, can central; banks ever commit again?  He will comment on the role of a systemic risk regulator, whether this is actually a useful concept at all, and how one would implement this.  What will follow is a disussion of new capital adequacy standards and increased financial regulation but also a review of regulatory capture and how this contributed to the crisis.  The presentation will conclude with comments on central bank independence.  The talk will be illustrated by the experiences in the United States.

TOPIC:  The Great Recession and the Future of Central Banking

DATE:    Tuesday 15 December, 2009

TIME:    4.00-5.30pm followed by drinks to 6.30pm

VENUE:  126 SANTOS Lecture Theatre, Marjoribanks Building, The Professions Hub, Cnr Pulteney Street and North Terrace, The University of Adelaide.  RSVP's  no later than Wednesday 9 December 2009 are essential, please contact Ms Litsa Morris litsa.morris@adelaide.edu.au or phone 8303 4768.

New Resource - Agricultural Distortions Database Reporter

Prof. Kym Anderson led from 2006 to 2009 a ground-breaking Wolrd Bank study to measure distortions to agricultural incentives in 75 countries over the past 50 years.  One great public benefit of this project is that it provides, for the first time, comprehensive, estimates of policy indicators, as well as their underlying data on prices, production, consumption and trade.  This database, compiled by Kym Anderson and Ernesto Valenzuela, can be accessed from the World Bank's project's website at www.worldbank.org/agdistortions.

The Centre for International economic Studies (CIES) of The University of Adelaide, under the leadership of Dr Ernesto Valenzuela, has converted the data from this project to a more user-friendly web interface enabling users to create their own tables and graphics.  The menu-driven items facility include data not only by country but also for major regions and broader country groups and fro the world as a whole, allowing one to generate national shares of country group or global data.

The interactive report-builder can be freely accessed at http://cies.adelaide.edu.au/agdistortions/database/report

Reprint - Global wine markets, 1961 to 2003: a statistical compendium

By Glyn Wittwer and Kym Anderson

The University of Adelaide Press in conjunction with Professor Kym Anderson has organised to reprint this publication. A PDF is available for download at the University Press website www.adelaide.edu.au/press, three other publications have been reprinted with an updated set of the Joseph Fisher Lecture Series pending.

GTAP Research Fellow 2009-2012

Congratulations to Dr Ernesto Valenzuela who has received the award of "GTAP Research Fellow 2009-2012", a recognition given to only 5 people every year. Dr Valenzuela was awarded this distinction at the Twelfth Annual Conference on Global Economic Analysis for hard work in his respective fields. The GTAP website is (http://www.gtap.org)