Devaluation of teaching and research in the history of economics and the decline in economics enrolments: reflections on the Australian experience

The study of economics in Australia has not fared well in recent times and appears to be increasingly concentrated in the country’s elite universities. Many universities established by the 1986 Dawkins reforms of the country’s then Labour government, and even several universities established before that time, are struggling to maintain viable economics programmes. There are uncanny similarities between this situation in Australia and that in other countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States. At the same time as this trend has been occurring, the teaching and scholarship of the history of economics has come under considerable attack in both Australia and overseas. This is despite the enviable international reputation and standing of Australian scholars in the field. This paper asks whether there might be a connection between these two trends. It analyses a number of specific assaults on the history of economics in Australia to unravel the independent and confounding factors at play and concludes that attitudes associated with the demise of the history of economics might also be responsible for undermining student interest in economics. The findings of studies published by the Australian Academy of the Humanities reveal that similar forces are at work more generally in the higher education sector.