Twentieth century economic development in Australia

Abstract

Preface to third editionThe original chapter titles have been retained, but each chapter has been completely revised and updated in respect to both quantitative and qualitative evidence. It has been possible to broaden and enrich the analysis of Australia's economic development and structural changes in the twentieth century not only by updating the tables in the second edition, but by also adding new tables in each chapter. This should more fully satisfy my objective to provide, for students and the general reader, a critical review of Australia's growth experiences and economic performance. In most cases the addition of new tables has been possible because of the availability of new and/or more complete data since the second edition was completed. Special care has been taken to ensure that comparable data, where available, have been collected for the long period of just over ninety years under review. In several respects, the data have been carried back into the nineteenth century more so than previously in order to view Australia's development in longer perspective.A table has been added in Chapter 1 to record Australia's population growth in terms of the time elapsed between the additions of successive millions of the population since European settlement began in 1788. A map has been included identifying the location of Australia's main mineral deposits and the area of Australia which is arid or semi-arid. In Chapter 2 a new table furnishes reviews from the mid-1960s of the rates of growth of labour, capital and multifactor productivity and of the inputs of labour, capital and total labour and capital. Previously, only estimates of labour productivity were available. Moreover, the estimates of labour productivity themselves in Chapters 2 and 6 have been strengthened by the addition of estimates of output per hour worked since 1974- 75 as well as per worker. The estimates per worker have themselves, for comparison, been extended back from 1900-01 to 1861. There is also in Chapter 2 a more detailed analysis of Australia's business cycle since the Second World War. This is aided by a new table providing a fuller description of the duration of the phases of the business cycle and a distinction between classical cycles and growth cycles.This book had been almost completed when the Australian National Accounts data for 1991-92 became available. These reflect the recession which began about January 1990 and became in February 1992 the longest downturn in business activity in Australia since the Second World War. The recession is reflected in a slowdown in the trend rates of growth of real gross domestic product (as shown in Table 2.1) from 4.1 per cent a year during 1982-83 to 1989-90 to 3.3 per cent a year during 1982-83 to 1991-92. The prospect is for a slow and uneven recovery in the Australian economy in the coming months.In Chapter 3 there are five additional tables dealing with: the major birthplace groups of Australia's population; crude birth rates and total fertility rates of low fertility countries; marital status of the population aged fifteen and over by sex; the child-dependency ratio and the old-aged-dependency ratio; and school retention rates to final year in Australia in comparison with the United States, Canada and Japan. There is also an expanded table showing new aspects of average issue. In Chapter 4 the tables allow for changes in the classification of exports and a new table highlights the recent major shifts in the direction of Australia's exports by region, notably the expansion of exports to the newly industrialized countries and other East Asian countries.

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