John Quiggin (born 29 March 1956) is an Australian
economist
An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics.
The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...
, a professor 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 ...
. He was formerly an
Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and Federation Fellow and a member of the board of the
Climate Change Authority of the
Australian Government
The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government or simply as the federal government, is the national executive government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The executive consists of the pr ...
.
[The Australian Climate Change Authority board announced. 21 June 2012](_blank)
/ref>[Helen Davidson, (23 March 2017), Two quit Australian climate authority blaming government 'extremists', ''The Guardian''](_blank)
Retrieved 4 September 2017
Education
Quiggin completed his undergraduate studies at the Australian National University
The Australian National University (ANU) is a public university, public research university and member of the Group of Eight (Australian universities), Group of Eight, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton, A ...
graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics in 1978 and a Bachelor of Economics in 1980. He then completed a Master of Economics through coursework and thesis at the Australian National University in 1984, and finished his Doctor of Philosophy in economics at the University of New England in 1988.
Academic and professional career
From 1978 to 1983, Quiggin was a research economist and in 1986 was the chief research economist with the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, now called the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics of the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. From 1984 to 1985 he was a research fellow of the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies at the Australian National University. From 1987 to 1988 he was a lecturer and then senior lecturer in the Department of Agricultural Economics of the University of Sydney
The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...
. In 1989 he was a visiting fellow at the Centre for International Economics, a consultancy firm in Canberra.
From 1989 to 1990, he was an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics of the University of Maryland, College Park
The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1856, UMD i ...
, a Fellow of the Research School of Social Sciences of Australian National University from 1991 to 1992, a senior fellow from 1993 to 1994 and a professor in 1995 at the Centre for Economic Policy Research of the Australian National University in 1995. From 1996 to 1999 Quiggin was a professor of economics and Australian Research Council Senior Fellow at James Cook University. Also in 1996, Quiggin was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. From 2000 to 2002 he was an Australian Research Council Senior Fellow at the Australian National University and an adjunct professor at the Queensland University of Technology and the inaugural Don Dunstan Visiting Professor at the University of Adelaide.
He has been based at the University of Queensland since 2003, being an Australian Research Council professorial fellow and federation fellow and a professor in the School of Economics and the School of Political Science and International Studies. He was an adjunct professor at the Australian National University from 2003 to 2006 and was the Hinkley Visiting Professor at Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...
in 2011.
Other work
Quiggin writes a blog involving "commentary on Australian and world events from a socialist and democratic viewpoint". It was included in the ''Focus Economics'' Top Economics and Finance Blogs of 2018 and the Top 100 Economics Blogs of 2020 by the ''Intelligent Economist''. He is also a regular contributor to '' Crooked Timber'', '' Inside Story'' and ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
''. Until April 2015, he was a Fellow at the Centre for Policy Development. He was an opinion columnist for the '' Australian Financial Review'' from 1996 until March 2012.
As of 2015, Quiggin opposed Bitcoin
Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC; Currency symbol, sign: ₿) is the first Decentralized application, decentralized cryptocurrency. Based on a free-market ideology, bitcoin was invented in 2008 when an unknown entity published a white paper under ...
, calling it a "delusion" that would lead to "environmental disaster" due to the "ever-increasing environmental damage from the electricity used in the 'mining' of Bitcoins" and that "The sooner this collective delusion comes to an end, the better." He also proposed that the value of Bitcoin was a refutation of the efficient market hypothesis: "The EMH states that the market value of an asset is equal to the best available estimate of the value of the services or income flows it will generate. In the case of a company stock, this is the discounted value of future earnings. Since Bitcoins do not generate any actual earnings, they must appreciate in value to ensure that people are willing to hold them. But an endless appreciation, with no flow of earnings or liquidation value, is precisely the kind of bubble the EMH says can’t happen."
In 2012, through Princeton University Press, Quiggin published his book Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk among Us which sold upward of 20 000 copies and was translated into eight languages. His most recent book, ''Economics in Two Lessons: Why Markets Work So Well, and Why They Can Fail So Badly'', was published in 2019 also from Princeton University Press and provides an introduction to free-market economics, covering key theory as well as its successes and failures.
He was appointed in 2012 to the board of the Climate Change Authority of the Australian Government
The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government or simply as the federal government, is the national executive government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The executive consists of the pr ...
.
With reference to the pro-nuclear film '' Pandora's Promise'', Quiggin comments that it presents the environmental rationale for nuclear power, but that reviving nuclear power debates is a distraction, and the main problem with the nuclear option is that it is not economically viable. Quiggin says that we need more efficient energy use
Efficient energy use, or energy efficiency, is the process of reducing the amount of energy required to provide products and services. There are many technologies and methods available that are more energy efficient than conventional systems. For ...
and more renewable energy commercialisation.
As part of his "commitment to public debate", Quiggin has contributed to a wide variety of Parliamentary inquires through submissions and appearances. These include the inquiries into Uranium Mining and Nuclear Power, Land Use in Victoria, the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement and the Urban Water Inquiry to name a few.
Awards
Quiggin is one of the most prolific economists in Australia, illustrated by citation frequencies in the period 1988–2000. He has been placed in the top 5% economists in the world according to IDEAS/RePEc since its monthly aggregate rankings began in 2004. Quiggin has frequently been awarded and recognised for his research, including twice receiving Federation Fellowships from the Australian Research Council.
He was awarded the Australian Social Science Academy Medal in 1993 and a Fellowship in 1996, received the 1997 and 2000 Sam Richardson of the Institute of Public Administration, Australia, received the 2001 Editors Prize of the ''Australian Journal of Agricultural Economics'', a Fellowship of the Australian Institute of Company Directors in 2002, and a Distinguished Fellowship of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society in 2004. He is a Fellow
A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...
of the Econometric Society and in 2011 received the Distinguished Fellow Award of the Economic Society of Australia.
He was awarded an Australian Laureate Fellowship in 2012.
Selected works
* 1994. ''Work for All: Full Employment in the Nineties'', Melbourne University Press, Carlton, (ed., with John Langmore
TOC.
* 1996. ''Great Expectations: Microeconomic Reform and Australia'', Allen & Unwin, Sydney,
* 1998. ''Taxing Times: A Guide to the Tax Debate in Australia'', UNSW Press, Sydney,
* 1998. "Social Democracy and Market Reform in Australia and New Zealand," ''Oxford Review of Public Policy'', 14(1), pp
79–109
also in A. Glyn (ed.), 2001, ''Social Democracy in Neoliberal Times: The Left and Economic Policy since 1980'', Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 80–109. .
* 2000. ''Uncertainty, Production, Choice, and Agency: The State-Contingent Approach'', Cambridge University Press, New York, (with Robert G Chambers
Description
an
preview.
* 2001. "Demography and the New Economy," ''Journal of Population Research'', 18(2),
p. 177
��193.
* 2019. ''Economics in Two Lessons: Why Markets Work So Well, and Why They Can Fail So Badly''. Princeton University Press,
an
Introduction.
* 2012
"Prospects of a Keynesian utopia"
, ''Aeon Magazine'', 27 September 2012
Notes
External links
John Quiggin's Home Page at the University of Queensland
John Quiggin's Blog
Profile
at SourceWatch
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Quiggin, John
1956 births
Australian male bloggers
21st-century Australian economists
20th-century Australian economists
Environmental economists
Fellows of the Econometric Society
Living people
People from Queensland
Australian National University alumni
Academic staff of the University of Queensland
University of New England (Australia) alumni
People from Adelaide
Fellows of the Australian Institute of Company Directors