Colin Grant Clark (2 November 1905 – 4 September 1989) was a British and Australian economist and statistician who worked in both the United Kingdom and Australia. He pioneered the use of gross national product (GNP) as the basis for studying national economies.

Early years

Colin Clark was born in London in 1905 and was educated at the Dragon School in

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

, then at

Winchester College Winchester College is an English Public school (United Kingdom), public school (a long-established fee-charging boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) with some provision for day school, day attendees, in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It wa ...

. He subsequently attended

Brasenose College, Oxford Brasenose College (BNC) is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It began as Brasenose Hall in the 13th century, before being founded as a college in 1509. The l ...

, where he graduated in chemistry in 1928. After graduation he worked as a research assistant with

William Beveridge William Henry Beveridge, 1st Baron Beveridge, (5 March 1879 – 16 March 1963) was a British economist and Liberal Party (UK), Liberal politician who was a Progressivism, progressive, social reformer, and eugenicist who played a central role ...

at the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...

(1928–29) and then with Sir Alexander Carr-Saunders and Allyn Young at the

University of Liverpool The University of Liverpool (abbreviated UOL) is a Public university, public research university in Liverpool, England. Founded in 1881 as University College Liverpool, Victoria University (United Kingdom), Victoria University, it received Ro ...

(1929–30). During this time he ran unsuccessful campaigns to be elected to parliament for the Labour Party in the constituency of North Dorset (1929), and later at Liverpool Wavertree (1931) and

South Norfolk South Norfolk is a local government district in Norfolk, England. The largest town is Wymondham, and the district also includes the towns of Costessey, Diss, Harleston, Hingham, Loddon and Long Stratton. The council was based in Long S ...

(1935). In 1930 he was appointed a research assistant to the National Economic Advisory Council newly convened by Prime Minister

Ramsay MacDonald James Ramsay MacDonald (; 12 October 18669 November 1937) was a British statesman and politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The first two of his governments belonged to the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party, where he led ...

. He resigned shortly after his appointment, after being asked to write a background memorandum to make a case for

protectionism Protectionism, sometimes referred to as trade protectionism, is the economic policy of restricting imports from other countries through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, import quotas, and a variety of other government regulations ...

. Despite this, he had sufficiently impressed one of the council members (

John Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes ( ; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist and philosopher whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originall ...

) to secure an appointment as a lecturer in statistics at

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

Lecturer at Cambridge

At Cambridge, he was a lecturer in statistics from 1931 to 1938. There he also completed three books: ''The National Income 1924–31'' (1932), ''The Economic Position of Great Britain'' (jointly with A. C. Pigou) (1936) and ''National Income and Outlay'' (1937). His first book was sent to the publisher Daniel Macmillan with a recommendation from John Maynard Keynes: " ..Clark is, I think, a bit of a genius: almost the only economic statistician I have ever met who seems to me quite first-class."

Move to Australia

During a visit to Australia and

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

in 1937 and 1938 he accepted a position with the

Queensland Government The Queensland Government is the state government of Queensland, Australia, a Parliament, parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Government is formed by the party or coalition that has gained a majority in the Queensland Legislative Assembly, ...

at the invitation of the premier Forgan Smith. At the time he wrote to Keynes about his decision to stay in Australia. As he put it, the chance to advise the Queensland Premier on 'practically everything connected with economic matters' was 'too remarkable an opportunity to be missed for putting economics into practice' On 6 May 1938, he was appointed Government Statistician, Director of the Bureau of Industry, and Financial Advisor to the Queensland Treasury, and provided the State's first set of economic accounts in 1940. He also held the position of Deputy Director (Queensland) of the Commonwealth Department of War Organisation of Industry from 1942 to 1946. Clark resigned as Government Statistician on 28 February 1947 to become Under Secretary of the Queensland Department of Labour and Industry. Unusually for a public servant he continued his academic work, publishing numerous articles on economics and preparing his book ''Conditions of Economic Progress'' which was published in 1940.

Later years

In 1951 he took a secondment to the

Food and Agriculture Organization The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; . (FAO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger and improve nutrition and food security. Its Latin motto, , translates ...

in Rome, and then to the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

(1952), before taking the Directorship of the Agricultural Economics Research Institute (AERI) at

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

(1952–1969). He returned to Australia in 1969 as the Director of the Institute of Economic Progress at

Monash University Monash University () is a public university, public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Named after World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the ...

(1969–1978) and finally as a Research Consultant to the Department of Economics at the

University of Queensland The University of Queensland is a Public university, public research university located primarily in Brisbane, the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. Founded in 1909 by the Queensland parliament, UQ is one of the six sandstone ...

until his death in 1989. He was on the Council of the Econometric Society from 1948 to 1952.

Family

Clark married Marjorie Tattersall in 1935; they had eight sons and one daughter, who in turn produced a total of 50 grandchildren. His son Gregory became an author and academic in Japan. His nephew, born to his sister Margaret, is the cognitive psychologist and computer scientist Nobel Laureate Geoffrey Hinton. Marjorie Tattersall's sister Viva Tattersall was a stage actress and Hollywood movie star.

Death

Clark died in Brisbane, Australia, on 4 September 1989. He is buried together with his wife Marjorie at the Mount Gravatt Cemetery in Brisbane (Section 3B).

Accolades

In 1984 he was named by the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...

as one of the "pioneers of development

along with Sir Arthur Lewis (economist), Arthur Lewis,

Gunnar Myrdal Karl Gunnar Myrdal ( ; ; 6 December 1898 – 17 May 1987) was a Swedish economist and sociologist. In 1974, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences along with Friedrich Hayek for "their pioneering work in the theory of money an ...

, W.W. Rostow and

Jan Tinbergen Jan Tinbergen ( , ; 12 April 1903 – 9 June 1994) was a Dutch economist who was awarded the first Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1969, which he shared with Ragnar Frisch for having developed and applied dynamic models for the ana ...

. In 1987 Clark was together with Professor Trevor Swan the first recipient of the Distinguished Fellow awards, presented by The Economic Society of Australia.

Honours

* Fellow of the Econometric Societybr>
* Corresponding Fellow of the

British Academy The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the sa ...

* Distinguished Fellow Award, The Economic Society of Australia

* HonDEcon Tilburg Universitybr>
DLitt

, HonDSc

University of Milan The University of Milan (; ), officially abbreviated as UNIMI, or colloquially referred to as La Statale ("the State niversity), is a public university, public research university in Milan, Italy. It is one of the largest universities in Eu ...

, Hon DEcon

br>
HonDEcon

. * Member of honor Hunky Doolybr>
* The Australasian Meeting of the Econometric Society has a Colin Clark Lecture at its meetings. * A building at the University of Queensland is named for him, and it is reputed that a stone grotesque in the university's Great Court was also made in his likeness (G19).

Publications

Papers

* "A System of Equations Explaining the United States Trade Cycle, 1921 to 1941", ''

Econometrica ''Econometrica'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal of economics, publishing articles in many areas of economics, especially econometrics. It is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Econometric Society. The current editor-in-chief is ...

'', Vol. 17, No. 2 (April 1949), pp. 93–124 * "The Economic Functions of a City in Relation to Its Size", ''Econometrica'', Vol. 13, No. 2 (April 1945), pp. 97–113 * "Economic Development in Communist China", '' The Journal of Political Economy'', Vol. 84, No. 2 (April 1976), pp. 239–264 * "Theory of Economic Growth", ''Econometrica'', Vol. 17, Supplement: Report of the Washington Meeting (July 1949), pp. 112–116 * "The Measurement of National Wealth: Discussion", (with Milton Gilbert; J. R. N. Stone; Francois Perroux; D. K. Lieu; Evelpides; Francois Divisia; Tinbergen; Kuznets; Smithies; Shirras; MacGregor), ''Econometrica'', Vol. 17, Supplement: Report of the Washington Meeting. (July 1949), pp. 255–272 * "A Critique of Russian Statistics by Colin Clark", '' Economica'', May 1941, NS 8, p. 212. * "Russian Income and Production Statistics", ''

The Review of Economics and Statistics ''The Review of Economics and Statistics'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that covers applied economics, with specific relevance to the scope of econometrics. The editors-in-chief are Will Dobbie (Harvard University) and Raymond Fisman (Bos ...

'', Vol. 29, No. 4 (November 1947), pp. 215–217. * "Afterthoughts on Paley", ''The Review of Economics and Statistics'', Vol. 36, No. 3 (August 1954), pp. 267–273. * ""Mr. Colin Clark on the Limits of Taxation": A Rejoinder", ''The Review of Economics and Statistics'', Vol. 36, No. 1 (February 1954), p. 101. * "The New Board of Trade Indexes", '' The Economic Journal'', Vol. 45, No. 178 (June 1935), pp. 370–375. * "Determination of the Multiplier from National Income Statistics", ''The Economic Journal'', Vol. 48, No. 191 (September 1938), pp. 435–448. * "Public Finance and Changes in the Value of Money", ''The Economic Journal'', Vol. 55, No. 220 (December 1945), pp. 371–389. * "Further Data on the National Income", ''The Economic Journal'', Vol. 44, No. 175 (September 1934), pp. 380–397. * "The Value of the Pound", ''The Economic Journal'', Vol. 59, No. 234 (June 1949), pp. 198–207. * "National Income at Its Climax", ''The Economic Journal'', Vol. 47, No. 186 (June 1937), pp. 308–320. * "World Supply and Requirements of Farm Products", ''

Journal of the Royal Statistical Society The ''Journal of the Royal Statistical Society'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of statistics. It comprises three series and is published by Oxford University Press for the Royal Statistical Society. History The Statistical Society of ...

'', Series A (General), Vol. 117, No. 3 (1954), pp. 263–296 * "Future Sources of Food Supply: Economic Problems", ''Journal of the Royal Statistical Society'', Series A (General), Vol. 125, No. 3 (1962), pp. 418–448 * "Urban Population Densities", ''Journal of the Royal Statistical Society'', Series A (General), Vol. 114, No. 4 (1951), pp. 490–496 * "The National Income and The Net Output of Industry", ''

'', Vol. 96, No. 4 (1933), pp. 651–659

Books

* ''The National Income, 1924–31'', 1932 * ''The Economic Position of Great Britain'', with A. C. Pigou, 1936 * ''National Income and Outlay'', 1937 * ''A Critique of Russian Statistics'', 1939 * ''Conditions of Economic Progress'', 1940 * ''The Economics of 1960'', 1942 * ''Statistical Society'' * ''Australian Hopes and Fears'', 1958 * ''Growthmanship'', 1961 * ''Economics of Subsistence Agriculture'', with M. R. Haswell, 1964 (second edition 1966, third edition 1967, fourth edition 1970) * ''Population Growth and Land Use'', 1967 (second edition 1977) * ''Starvation or Plenty?'', 1970 * ''The Myth of over Population and Why Population Growth Could Be Desirable'', June 1975 * ''Poverty Before Politics'', 1977 * ''The Economics of Irrigation'' with Ian D. Carruthers, 1981 * ''Regional and Urban Location'', 1982

References

External links

Don Patinkin, "Keynes and Econometrics: On the Interaction between the Macroeconomic Revolutions of the Interwar Period"
''

'', Vol. 44, No. 6 (November 1976), pp. 1091–1123
Pioneers in Development
Meier, G.M. and Seers, D. (eds) 1984, Oxford:

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

for the World Bank
Extract of Clark's Chapter in Pioneers In Development

''Macromeasurement Before and After Colin Clark''
by Angus Maddison, an extended version of the Colin Clark Lecture, delivered at the

, 22 August 2003
Australian Dictionary of Biography

H.W. Arndt. (subscriber site) * Donald Markwell
''Keynes and Australia''

Reserve Bank of Australia The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is Australia's central bank and banknote issuing authority. It has had this role since 14 January 1960, when the ''Reserve Bank Act 1959'' removed the central banking functions from the Commonwealth Bank. Th ...

, 2000; pages 39–43 especially relate to Colin Clark {{DEFAULTSORT:Clark, Colin 1905 births 1989 deaths Australian public servants British statisticians British emigrants to Australia People educated at The Dragon School People educated at Winchester College Alumni of Brasenose College, Oxford Academics of the University of Cambridge Academic staff of the University of Queensland Writers from London 20th-century Australian mathematicians 20th-century British economists Fellows of the Econometric Society Corresponding fellows of the British Academy