Dear colleagues and friends of the history of economic thought

At this year History of Economic Thought Society of Australia conference held at RMIT University last month three of its scholars won accolades. They were announced at the conference dinner which was attended by the patron of the Society, Glenn Stevens , Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia
Firstly  Neil Hart of the University of Western Sydney won the  prize for the best doctorate in HET. I will advise readers of this important awad in the next missive.

Greg Moore of Notre Dame University in Fremantle won the bi-annual  P. D. Groenewegen prize for the best article in the History of Economics Review for his review article 'Putting Donald Winch in context : An essay on Wealth and Life'.
It  appeared in issue No. 52 of the HER.

Lastly Michael Schneider oF La Trobe University was made a Distinguished Fellow of HETSA.

Michael Schneider ‘s association with the History of Economic Thought Society of Australia began before the Society was formed. In 1980 John Wood, with Ray Petridis and John Pullen co-founder of the Society, having spotted Michael’s M.Sc. thesis on Underconsumption and Imperialism: A Study in the Work of J.A.Hobson in the Cambridge University Library, wrote to him asking if he would be prepared to present a paper at a conference of historians of economic thought to be held at the University of New England in Armidale in May 1981. In reply, Michael offered a paper entitled ‘The History and Nature of Underconsumption Theories’.
The initial session of the 1981 conference was chaired by the University of New England’s Professor Peter Drake, who was given the choice of which paper he would like to preside over. Michael being the only presenter whom he knew, Professor Drake chose his paper, thereby conferring on him the honour of being the first to present a paper at what was to become the first of a succession of HETSA conferences, the twenty participants in this first conference deciding at its conclusion to form the History of Economic Thought Society of Australia.
The participants also decided to hold a conference every two years, and at the conclusion of the second conference, convened by Peter Groenewegen at the University of Sydney, Michael was appointed convener of the third conference, to be held at La Trobe University, where he still runs a course. At the conclusion of the La Trobe conference, at which there was an appointed  Discussant for each paper, resulting in particular in an unforgettable fierce ninety-minute debate between Sam Hollander and Ted Sieper on the latter’s Adam Smith paper, the late Barry Gordon said he had only one complaint about it, namely that Michael had made the participants work too hard. This remains the only HETSA conference of which there is a record not only of the papers but also of the entire discussion (see HETSA Bulletin No. 6).
Michael has participated in eighteen of the subsequent twenty-one HETSA conferences (study leave coincided with two of the others). At these conferences he presented papers on a wide range of topics, comprising Malthus’s theory of unemployment, Sismondi’s analysis of laissez-faire, Hobson’s critique of the marginal productivity theory of distribution, the history of the Wages Fund controversy, early critics of economic rationalism, the history of writings on the distribution of wealth, the origins of the Lorenz Curve and the Gini Coefficient, Malthus’s macroeconomic model, and the history and nature of the concept of positional goods, as well as offering short presentations on Keynesian income determination diagrams and Hobson’s legacy 150 years after his birth. The seventeenth HETSA conference at the University of Western Australia coincided with both the publication of Michael’s book entitled The Distribution of Wealth, and his retirement from full-time employment (at the age of 69). 
Michael has also been active as contributor, reviewer and referee with respect to HETSA’s journal, History of Economics Review.


regards

Alex Millmow
President of HETSA