An Interview with Emeritus Professor H. M. (Ted) Kolsen

Abstract

This interview forms a partial biography of Ted Kolsen, who migrated to Australia after the Second World War. It is an oral history of a boy sent from Berlin to England to escape the Nazis. It touches on his time in a Barnardo orphanage, his military service in postwar Germany, his work in Australia as a toolmaker, his undergraduate study, his time at the LSE doing a PhD, his work on transport economics, his ascent to a chair at the University of Queensland, his appointment to the Interstate Commission to report to the Commonwealth government on transport policy, and his other advisory positions. The interview illuminates both postwar social history and how economists strive to apply theory to complex practical problems.