I’ll be giving the opening presentation at the conference of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society next week. My title “Irresistible Force meets Immovable Object” is about the transition to solar power. The Irresistible Force is the massive expansion in production capacity for low-cost solar cells in China and elsewhere. The Immovable Object is the set of institutional obstacles to rapid deployment of new solar PV. My conclusion, optimistically, is that one way or another, the irrestible force will find its way around, through or over the seemingly immovable barriers.
But before I can give the talk, I have to be introduced, and that means I need a biography. The one I’ve been using is short, and reflects my long-standing illusion that I’m still an up-and-coming researcher, on the verge of doing great things. Now that I’m semi-retired, I’m looking at my career more in retrospect than in prospect. So I’ve written a longer bio, going back over the 40 years or more that I’ve been active in Australian economics. Here it is
John Quiggin has been an active member of the Australian economics profession since joining the (then) Bureau of Agricultural Economics (now ABARES) in the late 1970s. Apart from two temporary appointment in the United States, he has spent his entire career in Australia, at the University of Sydney, the Australian National University and James Cook University. Since 2002 he has been at the University of Queensland, successively holding positions as Federation Fellow (twice), Australian Laureate Fellow, and Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow. As of 2024, he is semi-retired, with a primary focus on public engagement.
Although he has worked on a great many topics, his abiding interests have been decision theory, resource and environmental economics and Australian public policy. He has published 10 books and over 250 journal articles, with nearly 30 in the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics. Recent and forthcoming books include Western Welfare Capitalisms in Good Times and Bad (2023), After Neoliberalism (2024) and Public Policy and Climate Change: Politics, Philosophy and Economics (Lecture Notes)
In decision theory, Quiggin is best known for the rank-dependent utility model, later incorporated into the cumulative prospect theory of Tversky and Kahneman. His 1982 paper, A Theory of Anticipated Utility, has been cited more than 4000 times. More recently, he has worked primarily on the problem of bounded awareness and surprises, with applications to the precautionary principle.
In agricultural and environmental economics, Quiggin has worked for more than forty years on the management of the Murray–Darling Basin. Along with Jeff Connor, Quentin Grafton, Sarah Wheeler and others, he has been an active advocate of more sustainable market-based policies, although with limited success so far. His most notable theoretical contribution has been his long collaboration with Bob Chambers on state-contingent production theory.
Quiggin has followed the path of earlier generations of Australian economists (notably including agricultural economists) who saw it as part of their job to take an active part in debates on public policy. While some of his contributions have been made through academic publications, the greater part has been addressed to the public at large. He has written numerous ‘trade’ books, published in paperback and aimed at a general audience. Recent examples are Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk Among Us and Economics in Two Lessons: Why Markets Work so Well, and Why they can Fail so Badly,
As well as commenting regularly in print and broadcast media, Quiggin has been very active in exploring the potential of new media. In 2002, he established what is now Australia’s longest-running political blog (possibly the longest-running Australian blog of any kind) at johnquiggin.com. He has also experimented with what is now called ‘social media’ (Facebook and the site formerly known as Twitter), and is now distributing newsletters through services such as Substack and Buttondown.
In political terms, Quiggin describes himself as a ‘socialist and democrat’. He advocates a mixed economy, with democratic social control over sectors of the economy where competitive markets cannot deliver adequate outcomes, including infrastructure, health and education, underpinned by a public commitment to full employment.
I prompted DALL-E to get a picture of my semi-retirement. It’s convinced I should regrow my beard!
This is a life well travelled along the road of academia. I read some things I did not know about John. But he should include his fearless battles against privatisation. This has been the darkest joke played on democracies in my lifetime. When John began his working life, Australia had a strong and powerful public sector. Today that same public sector is ineffective and riddled with subcontractors and consultants. The great public sector activities that made Australia a great place to live and work, back before privatisation, are now gone. We are left with infrastructure joint ventures that seek profit ahead of social overhead capital formation. But many would not even know this without the work of John Quiggin. For those of us outside academia, this is his greatest contribution to the new normal we now call the Australian way of life.
Mate you don’t need the beard ! Lol😂