Public Lectures

Lectures have been offered annually or every two years, during the period 1904-2019. A total of 61 lectures have been given.

History of Joseph Fisher lectures have been documented in a two-volume collection, edited by Kym Anderson, bringing together the first 56 Joseph Fisher Lectures in economics and commerce, presented at the Adelaide University every other year since 1904.

The Joseph Fisher Lecturers to date have been a mixture of prominent economists in academia and government, senior politicians including three Prime Ministers, and influential Australian bankers and businessmen. Most shared Joseph Fisher’s interests in liberal markets and small, non-interventionist government. Only three females have given a Fisher Lecture so far out of 60 lectures, a reflection of the male dominance until recently of the world of economics and business. More than a dozen of the past Lecturers appear in Who’s Who in Economics (edited by Mark Blaug and published by Edward Elgar), thirteen were knighted, and two have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics. 

2025
Senator Barbara Pocock: "Economics, Ethics and Power: How can economics help us navigate the challenges of our times?"

2019
Professor Siwan Anderson from the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia in Canada: Missing Women

2018
Paul Johnson, Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies: Choices in Public Policy

2017: Alison Booth, ANU: Choosing to Compete: How Different are Men and Women?

2016
Bruce Chapman, ANU: How income-contingent loans can help solve key economic and social issues

1904-2012 Lectures
A 2-volume set of the first 56 Lectures (1904-2012) has been edited by Kym Anderson and published by the University of Adelaide Press in paperback and is freely downloadable as an e-book.

The Harcourt Visiting Professorship was established in recognition of the 25 years of infectious enthusiasm and distinguished scholarship which Geoff Harcourt gave to the School of Economics and Public Policy. The School has hosted a Geoff Harcourt visiting Professorship and a Public Lecture series in his name since 2009. These are generously funded by an endowment set up with the donations of 40 alumni and 4 organizations.

Each year the School of Economics and Public Policy invites a global leader in a field of economics to be the Geoff Harcourt Visiting Professor. During the period of appointment, the Professor shares their knowledge and experience in a public lecture and in meetings with alumni, students, staff and the business community.

The Harcourt Visiting Professorship has enabled the School of Economics, especially the junior staff members, to interact with some of the leading academics around the world. These interactions have helped foster an intellectual environment, injected new ideas, and provided the much needed exposure to the frontiers of economic research. Such visiting professorships are our window to the world. They also provide the school an opportunity to showcase their talent and strengths to prominent scholars in their field. This helps the school attract new recruits, send our own students to top economics schools, and integrate us into the global network of economics research fraternity.

2020 

Professor Kelton is a Professor of Public Policy and Economics at Stony Brook University, and a senior economic adviser to Bernie Sanders’ 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns. Professor Kelton was listed by Bloomberg as “one of the 50 people who defined 2019”.

The Harcourt lecture was entitled “The Deficit Myth” and explored MMT, Modern Monetary Theory - a concept that proposes government deficits, that avoid inflation, can help fight a myriad of problems including inequality, poverty and unemployment, climate change, housing, and health care.

2018 

Professor John Siegfried is an Emeritus Professor, Vanderbuilt University. John was a senior economist at both the US Federal Trade Commission and the US President’s Council of Economic Advisers. In 2012 he retired after 16 years of service as Secretary-Treasurer (Executive Director) of the American Economic Association. He first came to Australia as a Visiting Professor at the University of Adelaide in 1986, returned in 1991-92, and since then has made annual short-term visits. His research includes industrial economics, the economics of sport, and the economics of higher education. He has been President of the Southern Economic Association and the Midwest Economics Association, and served on the Board of Directors of the National Bureau of Economic Research for 15 years.

As part of his visiting professorship, Professor Siegfried delivered the 2018 Harcourt Lecture to a full house on “Better Living through Economics?”  

2017 

Professor Alan Winters from the University of Sussex is a leading specialist on the empirical and policy analysis of international trade, including that of Europe and of developing countries. He is a leading contributor to research and debate on Brexit and the UK's post-Brexit trade policy. From 2008 to 2011 he was Chief Economist at the British government’s Department for International Development (DFID), and from 2004 to 2007 Director of the Development Research Group of the World Bank.

Professor Winters gave a lecture on ‘“How will the World Trade Organisation shape ‘Brexit’?”

2016

Professor David Vines is currently a professor of economics at Oxford University and a Fellow of Balliol College and is the director of the Centre for International Macroeconomics at Oxford. From 2008 to 2012 he was the Research Director of the European Union’s Framework Seven PEGGED Research Program, which analysed Global Economic Governance within Europe. His work spans international macroeconomics, the reform of international financial architecture and monetary economics.

Professor Vines gave a lecture on “Individuals, Institutions and Ideas: Australia’s Macroeconomic Policymaking System from Federation to 2020” . 

2014 

Professor Lise Versterlund is a behavioral and experimental economist, and the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Economics at the University of Pittsburgh. She is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She is a co-author of the acclaimed 2022 book The No Club: Putting a Stop to Women's Dead-End Work.  Her highly influential work in behavioral and experimental economics shows how gender differences in competition, confidence, and expectations contribute to the persistent gender gap in advancement. Professor Versterlund discussed gender specific behaviour using measured studies to highlight key trends.

Professor Versterlund gave a lecture on “Sustaining the Glass Ceiling through Gender Differences in Beliefs and Behaviour - Harcourt Lecture”

2013 

Professor Richard Baldwin has been Professor of International Economics at the Graduate Institute in Geneva since 1991 and Editor-in-Chief of VoxEU.org since he founded it in 2007. He was been Director then President of CEPR (2014-2018). He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and was twice elected as a Member of the Council of the European Economic Association.

Professor Richard Baldwin addressed a diverse audience on "Misthinking Globalisation" and why it matters”

2012 

Professor Avinash Dixit is the John J. F. Sherrerd '52 University Professor of Economics at Princeton University since July 1989, and Emeritus since 2010. He was also Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Economics at Lingnan University (Hong Kong), senior research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford and Sanjaya Lall senior visiting research fellow at Green Templeton College, Oxford. He is the co-author of "Investment Under Uncertainty" (Princeton University Press), the first textbook exclusively about the real options approach to investments.

Professor  Dixit presented the Harcourt Lecture was on “Foreign Direct Investment and Economic Governance”

2011
Professor Philip G Pardey (University of Minesota): A Retrospective and Prospective Look at Global Agricultural Productivity Performance

2009
Professor Thomas Lubik (Senior Advisor, Research Department, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond). First, Harcourt Lecture.