• About the McComish Prize
• About the McComish Doctoral Student Award

‘Giblin’s Platoon’ earns 2006 McComish Prize for Economic History

Tuesday 13 February 2007

Around 1920 there formed a friendship of four men who were to be at the heart of Australian economic thought and policy-making over the next 30 years: L F Giblin, J B Brigden, D B Copland and Roland Wilson. This book tells their story.

So begins the synopsis of Giblin's Platoon (ANU E Press, 2006) the book which has won the 2006 Bruce McComish Prize for Economic History for its three co-authors:  Reader Dr William Coleman and Associate Professor Selwyn Cornish from the School of Economics at the Australian National University (ANU), and Dr Alf Hagger, an Honorary Research Associate of the School of Economics at the University of Tasmania.

Mr Bruce McComish, who in 2002 established the Bruce McComish Fund for Economic History in the Trinity College Foundation, today presented the award to two of this year’s recipients during the Asia-Pacific Economic and Business History (APEBH) Conference  at the University of Sydney. Dr Hagger was unable to attend the presentation.

This is only the second time the McComish Prize has been awarded. Professor Simon Ville from the University of Wollongong won the inaugural Prize in 2003 for his history of the role of the stock and station agent in Australia.

Judges for the 2006 award were:

• Professor Stuart McIntyre, the Ernest Scott Professor of History and former Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne, who this year takes up the Chair of Australian Studies at Harvard University
  
• Professor David Merrett, Department of Management in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce at the University of Melbourne and co-author (with Grant Fleming and Simon Ville) of The big end of town: big business and corporate leadership in twentieth-century Australia, (Cambridge University Press, 2004)
  
• Mr Bruce Sinclair McComish, businessman and author of Antilogic: Why Businesses Fail While Individuals Succeed (John Wiley & Sons, London, 2001), who created the Prize
• The Revd Dr Andrew McGowan, Warden of Trinity College, who chaired the judging panel.
  

Judges' Comments

In commending this work, Professor McIntyre said:

‘Giblin's Platoon makes an important contribution to our understanding of Australian economic policy from the Depression to the 1950s. It shows how Australia responded to the challenges of unemployment, war  and reconstruction, fashioning new institutions to guide national development and adapt to the post-war international order. More than this, it demonstrates the far-reaching consequences of economists' participation in public policy.

The book is based on exhaustive research of archives and personal  papers. It pays particular attention to the development of techniques of economic management, showing how Australians drew on the new forms of economic analysis emerging internationally but always with an acute sense of local circumstances. More than this, it establishes the personal dynamics of a circle of intelligent, engaged men with wide interests.

The book is a distinguished exercise in the history of economic thought, but it is also a history of the formation and operation of public institutions, and enriches understanding of the transformation of the Australian economy.’

Professor Merrett sees the importance of this work coming from ‘it’s its ability to cast new light on the formation and execution of public policy in the period between the wars and the early post-WWII era.’

He further commented:

‘Giblin’s Platoon complements and pulls together the existing body of contemporary writings and the later interpretative studies by using the inter-connected biography of four key individuals, Giblin, Copeland, Brigden and Wilson, as narrative structure. The book skilfully and seamlessly combines the craft of an intellectual biography with that of the social scientist probing the technical qualities of economic ideas of its subjects. The book is an important step forward in our understanding of the formation of modern Australia.’

About the Winners

Dr William Coleman has written extensively on the contested position of economics in society. In 2003 his book Economics and its Enemies won an Outstanding Academic Title Award from the American Libraries Association. In 1997 he won the prize for the best article on the history of economics from the American History of Economics Society. He is presently president of the History of Economic Thought Society of Australia.

Associate Professor Selwyn Cornish teaches economic history and the history of economic thought. His research interests include the interplay between economic ideas, economic policy, and the lives of economists. He has written extensively on Australian economists, especially Leslie Melville and Roland Wilson. He is the co-author of a forthcoming biography of H W Arndt, and wrote the entry on John Maynard Keynes for the Biographical Dictionary of British Economists. He is an Associate Editor of the planned Biographical Dictionary of Australian Economists.

Dr Alf Hagger is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and a distinguished economist who has written 11 books and many papers. He worked under D B Copland and Roland Wilson and was closely associated with L E Giblin.

The McComish Doctoral Student Award

This afternoon, Mr Bruce McComish also publicly congratulated New Zealand PhD student Larry Lepper from Victoria University, Wellington, whose airfares, accommodation and conference registration fees were paid for by the McComish Fund as part of its ongoing initiatives to encourage rigorous research in economic history.

Mr Lepper holds a Bachelor of Commerce & Administration (BCA) majoring in Accountancy and Economics, a BA(Hons) in Religious Studies and a Diploma in English Literature. More recently, his studies have been in the area of Economic History, gaining him a BCA with First Class Honours and an MCA with Distinction. His PhD studies are in the spread of economic ideas, especially to the lay public. Apart from his first degree, all his study has been conducted part time while simultaneously pursuing a career in business that has taken him from accountancy to information technology, including the establishment of two successful software development companies. He is also part owner of a Wellington wine bar.

McComish Essay Prize: What are the Big Questions and Research Challenges in the Economic History of Australia and New Zealand?

During the 2007 APEBH conference a plenary session was held to discuss the research questions and challenges facing economic history in Australasia.

As part of this process, an essay (2000 words) prize competition on the subject was instituted. Four entries were received and were judged by a panel consisting of Professor Simon Ville (University of Wollongong), Associate-Professor Ian McLean (University of Adelaide) and Mr Bruce McComish, benefactor of the McComish Fund.

The judges selected the essay by Professor Howard Dick (Department of Management & Marketing, University of Melbourne) as the winner. They commended his paper for pulling together some important questions into an overall framework, especially those of Federalism/regionalism, Asia-Pacific engagement, and the aboriginal economy.

The judges also felt that all four essays were thoughtful and worthy pieces and thanked their authors for contributing to the discussion.