John Kennedy

Abstract

Quiet Achiever It is always sad when we lose colleagues. But it is particularly sad when they die too young. We worked with John for many years, and he was always highly regarded as a professional in agricultural and environmental economics. He was somewhat shy and retiring, always a gentle person, quietly spoken, very thoughtful and scholarly and very caring towards his colleagues, and undergraduate and postgraduate students. Former postgraduate students have commented that John's style as a supervisor was to guide and encourage, rather than to direct. He was an absolute joy to work with. We received numerous responses from his colleagues in agricultural and environmental economics following the announcement of his death, as we expected. But it was only when we read responses from colleagues around the world in fisheries resources and economics that we realised how widespread his impact has been. John was a member of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade. Following John's death, the Institute circulated to its membership an appreciation of John's contributions and forwarded their comments to us. He was indeed a ‘Quiet Achiever’. John was born in Scotland and raised in London. He obtained a BSc in Economics and Accounting at Bristol University and a PhD in Agricultural Economics at Wye College, University of London in 1971. He came to Australia in 1971 and for 3 years was a Research Fellow in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Business Management at the University of New England (UNE). Here, John commenced the building of an Aggregative Programming Model for Australian Agriculture (APMAA) under the supervision of Professors John Dillon and John Guise. The project grew to support a team of four full-time researchers and was ahead of its time. It continued after John left UNE. John joined La Trobe University in 1975 as a lecturer in the School of Economics where he stayed for 37 years, reaching positions of Reader and Associate Professor. John's wife Ann wrote after his death that when John was still well he remembered with great fondness the halcyon days at La Trobe with his agricultural economics colleagues. His main research and teaching interests at La Trobe University were in agricultural, fisheries, forestry and environmental economics. He employed and further developed decision-making tools – in particular dynamic programming. He initiated and taught a wide array of courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, including microeconomic theory, cost-benefit analysis, global environmental issues, resource and environmental economics, environmental law and management, and location and transport economics, to name a few. He supervised around a dozen PhD theses including ‘Methodological issues in contingent valuation: An application to endangered species’; ‘Sustainable and conventional agriculture: An economic analysis of Australian cereal/livestock farming’; ‘Trade games: non-cooperative strategies in the international wheat market’; ‘Incentives for switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources by the North and the South: a game-theoretic analysis of response to global warming’; and ‘The effect of trade in carbon credits on global timber demand’. John published around 50 journal articles, a number of books and book chapters, including the book ‘Dynamic Programming: Applications to Agriculture and Natural Resources’. His journal articles ranged from ‘A model for determining optimal feeding and marketing policies for beef cattle’ to ‘The impact of quotas on the Southern Bluefin Tuna industry’. The article ‘Within-season rents: maximized or dissipated in an open-access fishery?’ co-authored by John with Rognvaldur Hannesson won the outstanding article award in Marine Resource Economics for 2006. His book on Dynamic Programming is a seminal work that has been widely quoted in the literature. A reviewer in the Australian Journal of Agricultural Economics (1988) concluded that the book would make the tools of dynamic analysis available to a much wider audience of applied economists and that its greatest use would be for researchers and applied economists in the analysis of stochastic and dynamic problems. A valuable feature of the book was its inclusion of generalised computer programs in BASIC for different classes of dynamic programming problems. John won research grants including a significant grant by The Australian Research Council for a project on the ‘Determination of Optimal Annual Fish Catches allowing for Multicohort Stocks and Adjustments in Fleet Size’. He was also appointed Project Leader by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research for the project ‘Maximising the economic benefits to Pacific Island Nations from management of migratory tuna stocks’ with a budget of approximately $600,000. Professional positions held by John have included Book Review Editor and Joint Editor, Australian Journal of Agricultural Economics; Associate Dean for Research and Postgraduate Studies, School of Economics and Commerce, La Trobe University; President, Victorian Branch of the Australian Agricultural Economics Society; Distinguished Research Fellow, Centre for Fisheries Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen; and Associate Editor, Marine Resource Economics. John also participated in a number of consultancies including for the Bureau of Immigration Research on ‘Immigration, Population Growth and the Environment’; and the Victorian Department of Conservation and Environment on ‘Economic Principles for the Establishment and Optimisation of Conjunctive Water Use Schemes’. John had several periods of sabbatical leave in the United States, Norway, England and Scotland, as well as at Australian universities. He and his wife Ann were especially fond of Edinburgh and planned to make their home there in retirement. Unfortunately, John's retirement years were few and beset by the rapid onset of dementia. John is survived by Ann and their daughters Jessica and Vanessa. John will be sorely missed by all those who knew him.