Training Professional Economists: The Australian Experience

Abstract

My first acquaintance with Ray Petridis occurred more than twenty years ago. I had just finished an Honours degree at the University of Sydney and was embarking on a Masters degree at the University of New England. Ray came and gave a staff seminar on ‘Economists in a Federal System’. He was on the lecture circuit with this paper that was part of an international study of ‘Economists in Government’ coordinated by A.W. Coats and later published as a book by Duke University Press and as a special issue of the History of Political Economy (Petridis 1981). Little did I then realise that I would be replicating Ray’s professional training by doing a PhD at the same institution (Duke University), having the same supervisor (Craufurd Goodwin) and later also working on economists in government (in my case, Arthur Okun). Indeed, one of my first tasks as editorial assistant for HOPE was to help with the publication of the Coats volume that included the Petridis paper. Petridis (1981) examined, in a considered and scholarly way, the role and impact of the large number of graduates in economics employed by Australian governments. This work predated by a decade the publication by Michael Pusey on Economic Rationalism in Canberra that was to generate so much controversy and ill-feeling. The ensuing debate on economic rationalism ‘at best led to some misconceptions about economics and economic policies. At its worst, the argument has degenerated into diatribe’ (King and Lloyd 1993, p. vii). Petridis concluded that his research led to a basically positive view of the contribution of economics graduates. However, there was some disquiet about the overuse of economic analysis for essentially social problems and a lack of pragmatism on the part of graduates. Moreover, it was felt that a ‘multidisciplinary approach should be cultivated which would help to counter the tendency to perceive particular problems through the narrow lens of a single specialism’ (Petridis 1981, p. 432). In this chapter I take up some of these themes but from the perspective of the nature of postgraduate training in economics. I examine the purposes of postgraduate education and the role of economics in preparing students for academic and other employment options. The scope for cross-disciplinary collaboration, and the international dimension reshaping postgraduate education, lead to proposals for improving the learning process at the postgraduate level.