Impacto del transporte urbano informal en el Contrato de Concesión

5.2.1. The international scene

The end of WWII marked the beginning of major changes to the organisation of work, employment and society. Expansion of the higher education system in most industrialised nations in the post-WWII decades increased students, appointments and research in all disciplines and fields, including economic history. In the US, Sweden, Spain and Japan, the field developed close links with the economics discipline.⁶⁴ In other national contexts, economic historians were appointed to a mixture of economics and history groups, with continental Europe particularly emphasising the relationship between economic history and the broader humanities.⁶⁵ Separate departments of economic history manifested in

59 Williams, Balanced growth, p.37.

60 Forsyth, Modern Australian university; Anderson and Eaton, 'Post-war reconstruction'.

61 Forsyth, Modern Australian university; S. Macintyre, The poor relation, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2010.

62 Groenewegen, Educating for business.

63 Noel Butlin is a notable example, he was employed (with future ANU colleagues Swan and JG Crawford) at the Department of Postwar Reconstruction from 1942 – 1946.

64 Lamoreaux, 'Beyond the old and the new'; K. Sugihara, 'Japanese economic history: Exploring diversity in development', in Boldizzoni and Hudson, ed., Routledge handbook of global economic history, London: Routledge, 2015; Y. Hasselberg, 'Manufacturing the historic compromise: Swedish economic history and the triumph of the Swedish model', in Boldizzoni and Hudson, ed., Routledge handbook of global economic history, London: Routledge, 2015.

65 Aerts and Bosma, 'Low countries'; Boje, 'Danish economic history'; J.-Y. Grenier, 'Economic history in France: A Sonderweg?', in Boldizzoni and Hudson, ed., Routledge handbook of global economic history, London: Routledge, 2015; Hasselberg, 'Swedish economic history'

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Britain, Australia and the Netherlands.⁶⁶ In India, Latin America and Japan on the other hand, expansion of the field contributed to the growth of professional organisations.⁶⁷ The post-WWII growth of economic history was thus a global phenomenon, which encouraged a number of distinctive intellectual traditions.

There was an expansion of research using national income accounting in the post-WWII period. The popularity of Keynesian economic analysis complemented the interest from economic historians in the long-term process of growth and development.⁶⁸ Kuznets extended his interwar efforts to develop historical national accounts for the US and Europe, and he was joined by similar work in France, the UK, Spain, Belgium, India, and elsewhere in the post-WWII decades.⁶⁹ Noel Butlin’s efforts to construct historical national accounts for Australia was part of this international trend.⁷⁰

In Britain in the 1950s, there was also the development of a more formal theoretical style of economic history that took cues from the economics discipline. Alec Cairncross, Brinley Thomas, Robin Matthews and others began using a ‘quantitative-historical’ approach, which included theoretical reasoning, economic models and the analysis of extensive quantitative information. The approach diffused to Australia’s post-WWII economic history community, with Ernst Boehm influenced by the work of Matthews, and Alan Hall influenced by Cairncross.⁷¹ These intellectual traditions fostered a closer relationship between economic history and the economics discipline. It was reflected in the first International Economic History Congress, held in Stockholm in 1960, with most sessions concerned with industrialisation, human capital and technological innovation.⁷²

The Marxist school of socio-economic analysis directly influenced the economic history field in the 1950s and 1960s, through the debate in Britain about improvements to living

66 Hudson, 'Economic history in Britain'; Aerts and Bosma, 'Low countries'; Coleman, History and the economic past; Pincus and Snooks, 'Editorial reflections'.

67 Saito, 'A very brief history of Japan’s economic and social history research'; P. Parthasarathi, 'The history of Indian economic history', in Boldizzoni and Hudson, ed., Routledge handbook of global economic history, London: Routledge, 2015; Sugihara, 'Japanese economic history'; L. Bertola and J.

R. Weber, 'Latin American economic history: Looking backwards for the future', in Boldizzoni and Hudson, ed., Routledge handbook of global economic history, London: Routledge, 2015.

68 Van Der Wee, 'Economic history'.

69 Aerts and Bosma, 'Low countries'; Hudson, 'Economic history in Britain'; I. Iriarte-Goni, 'Spanish economic history: Lights and shadows in a process of convergence', in Boldizzoni and Hudson, ed., Routledge handbook of global economic history, London: Routledge, 2015; Lamoreaux, 'Beyond the old and the new'; Lyons, et al., ed. Reflections; Parthasarathi, 'Indian economic history'; Van Der Wee, 'Economic history'.

70 See discussion of the development of the orthodox school in chapter 7.

71 See chapters 6 and 7.

72 Van Der Wee, 'Economic history'.

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standards during the Industrial Revolution.⁷³ The optimists, including those who adopted the ‘quantitative-historical’ approach, argued that there had been gains to material well-being between 1770 and 1850. The pessimists, on the other hand, argued that even if there were improvements, quality of life was eroded by rapid urbanisation, pollution, and unhealthy living conditions.⁷⁴ By the 1970s, most mainstream economic historians were on the side of the optimists (including Australian/British economic historian Max Hartwell), while the pessimists were reinforced by ‘new left’ and Marxist historians such as Edward Thompson and Eric Hobsbawm. The standard of living debate had some impact on the Australian economic history community through Hartwell’s chapter in Abbott and Nairn’s edited volume, where he argued that perceptions of increasing poverty and crime prompted British transportation to Australia.⁷⁵ Beyond the standard of living debate, a more general Marxist framework was championed by Wells, and Buckley and

Wheelwright in the 1970s and 1980s.⁷⁶

The Annales School became a major intellectual trend in the post-WWII period. Named after the French journal, Annales d’histoire économique et sociale, established in 1929, the Annales approach emphasised long-term historical structures such as geography, material cultures and intellectual movements. By inductively marrying sources, an historical question and a contributory social science field, the Annales School aimed for a ‘grand alliance’ of the social sciences.⁷⁷ Fernand Braudel’s Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world developed the idea of different modes of historical time. ‘Structure’ describes the glacier-like macrocosm of a society, including geography, climate and biology.

‘Conjoncture’ is the half- to full-century cycle where technology, prices, population growth and culture gradually transform the ‘structure’. Finally, ‘events’ have merely surface effects, often noisy but with no real implications for the deeper currents of history.⁷⁸ The Annales School was well-received in Italy, Poland, Spain, Latin America and Mexico from the 1950s onwards.⁷⁹ The reaction in Britain was generally hostile, except for Marxist

73 Lyons, et al., ed. Reflections; R. Hilton, ed. The transition from feudalism to capitalism, London:

New Left Books, 1976.

74 E. Griffin, A short history of the British industrial revolution, New York: Palgrave, 2010.

75 R. M. Hartwell, 'The British background', in Abbott and Nairn, ed., Economic growth of Australia 1788-1821, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1969. See chapter 7.

76 See discussion of the knowledge network in chapter 9.

77 R. Forster, 'Achievements of the Annales school', The Journal of Economic History, 38, 1, 1978, p.74.

78 Forster, 'The Annales school'.

79 Forster, 'The Annales school'; S. K. Ficker, 'Mexico's economic history: Much more cliometrics and dependency theory', in Boldizzoni and Hudson, ed., Routledge handbook of global economic history, London: Routledge, 2015; Bertola and Weber, 'Latin American economic history'.

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historians such as Eric Hobsbawn.⁸⁰ In the US, Germany, India, Russia, and Japan, the Annales approach had very little impact. In Australia, the integrated approach of Braudel and the Annales School was an inspiration for John McCarty and his colleagues at Monash University. This influenced the comparative approach that emerged in Australian

economic history in the 1970s and 1980s.⁸¹ Although the Annales School remained an important intellectual tradition, it never dominated mainstream economic history.

Greater emphasis on the mechanisms of growth, increasing quantification, and extended use of economic theory in economic history fuelled the ‘cliometrics revolution’.⁸² In this approach, scholars used advanced statistical techniques and model building to study aspects of the economic past. Cliometrics is generally traced to a gathering of the US Economic History Association in Williamstown in 1957. Here, Alfred H. Conrad and John R.

Meyer presented pioneering papers on the use of statistics and economic theory, and slavery in the ante-bellum south. Meyer has since recalled that while he and Conrad were, to their mind, merely extending their training in economics in a conventional way, they received a strong, polarised reaction from the Williamstown audience.⁸³ Younger practitioners were in favour of the approach that expanded their research horizons and increased their opportunity for professional advancement, but older practitioners were sceptical of the newer techniques.

The immediate success of cliometrics as an intellectual movement was facilitated by the US higher education sector at the time. Expansion of universities, and appointments in economic history, increased the level of intellectual debate and engagement with new ideas.⁸⁴ Purdue University, the site of the first cliometrics seminars in the 1960s, had no prior standing in the field, had good salaries and facilities, was removed from the established academic centres, and had an atmosphere of competition and intellectual excitement. This facilitated the “boldly innovative” cliometrics output in the 1960s.⁸⁵ Cliometrics developed to emphasise the use of economic theory, precise measurement, hypothesis testing and, often, a counterfactual approach to analysing history.⁸⁶

80 E. J. Hobsbawm, 'From social history to the history of society', Daedalus, 100, 1, 1971.

81 See the discussion of the knowledge network in chapter 9.

82 Coats, 'The Historical Context'; Godden, 'In praise of Clio'; Lyons, et al., ed. Reflections.

83 Coats, 'The Historical Context', p.187.

84 Coats, 'Disciplinary self-examination'; Lyons, et al., ed. Reflections.

85 Coats, 'The Historical Context', p.197. See also Godden, 'In praise of Clio'; Lyons, et al., ed.

Reflections; Rojas, 'Cliometrics'.

86 Coats, 'The Historical Context'; Lyons, et al., ed. Reflections.

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Cliometrics dominated the economic history field in the US in the post-WWII decades. It was also prominent in Canada, as scholars were dissatisfied with the interwar staples thesis as an explanation for economic development. Cliometrics inspired a revision of staples thesis in the 1960s, with Edward J. Chambers and Donald F. Gordon combining neoclassical theory, counterfactual reasoning, and econometric techniques to challenge much (and reinforce some) of the conventional wisdom about Canadian economic history.⁸⁷ Limited developments in Britain, such as the work by John Habakkuk and Max Hartwell in the 1960s, was also in a consciously cliometric vein.⁸⁸ In Europe, similarly, cliometrics had some influence, particularly within economics departments.⁸⁹

While there was some diffusion of cliometrics to the international economic history community, it never dominated outside of North America. Cliometrics instead became the domain of economists concerned with historical processes. Those in Britain, as rivals to the US group, were particularly critical of cliometrics. Criticisms centred on the

cliometricians’ use of counterfactuals, the neglect of social and cultural factors, and the application of ahistorical economic theory.⁹⁰ There were concerns that the approach gave access only to those with the necessary expertise in econometrics, which was particularly incompatible with the broader approach to economic historians in Britain and Europe. The experience of economic historians in Canada somewhat justifies this concern, with the adoption of cliometrics in the 1960s meaning the field became “less accessible to a wide audience and less relevant to historians in general”.⁹¹

There was some diffusion of cliometrics to the Australian economic history community, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s. Some of this was due to increased graduate training for Australian economic historians in the US. It was also due to US cliometricians

appointed to ongoing positions at the ANU, Adelaide and UNSW. Visiting scholar programs, and collaborations with US scholars, also assisted the diffusion of this approach.⁹² As in the

87 See E. J. Chambers and D. F. Gordon, 'Primary products and economic growth: An empirical measurement', The Journal of Political Economy, 74, 4, 1966; W. Easterbrook and M. Watkins, Approaches to Canadian economic history, Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1967; Watkins and Grant, Canadian economic history; McCalla, 'Making a country'.

88 Lyons, et al., ed. Reflections.

89 Van Der Wee, 'Economic history'.

90 Mathias, 'Still living with the neighbours'; R. Perren, 'A personal view', in Hudson, ed., Living economic and social history, Glasgow: Economic History Society, 2001; Van Der Wee, 'Economic history'.

91 Watkins and Grant, Canadian economic history, p.xii. See also H. G. J. Aitken, 'Myth and measurement: The Innis tradition in economic history', Journal of Canadian Studies, 12, 5, 1977;

McCalla, 'Making a country'.

92 See the discussion of co-location, PhD supervision, and collaboration in chapter 8.

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US, cliometrics in Australia was polarising, dividing the ranks of economic historians throughout the 1980s.⁹³ While the approach did remain in the minority in Australian economic history, there was an overall closer integration with the economics discipline.

The adoption of cliometrics in Australia was thus a part of a wider intellectual and professional orientation towards the economics discipline in the 1980s.

5.2.2. Economic history in postwar Australian higher education

Australia’s higher education sector expanded, like other developed nations, in the post-WWII decades. Increases in funding, student numbers, and higher education institutions expanded the resources available to all disciplines and fields. The social sciences captured much of these effects, as those who had served on government advisory boards during WWII joined together to demand recognition and institutional support for their work.⁹⁴ The growth of economic history within universities was part of this trend, becoming a required subject in commerce or social science degrees throughout this period.⁹⁵ In 1945 there was one university in each state.⁹⁶ From there, the post-WWII period represented the greatest educational expansion in Australia’s history. Student numbers grew through government returned servicemen schemes, greater professionalisation of occupations, and the growing perception that tertiary education was necessary for social and economic advancement.⁹⁷ University and teacher’s college enrolments doubled between 1945 and 1950, with this growth rate sustained throughout the next two decades.⁹⁸ Government attention on research, which began during the interwar period, also increased, with greater funding and the introduction of domestic PhD programs.⁹⁹ The establishment of the ANU in 1946 was a key component of the government’s focus on research.¹⁰⁰ The ANU was a research-only institution at first (the only students were PhD scholars), and was entirely, and generously, funded by the Commonwealth government.

93 Pincus and Snooks, 'Editorial reflections'.

94 Macintyre, The poor relation.

95 Schedvin, 'Economic history in Australian universities'.

96 Universities of Sydney (est. 1850), Melbourne (1855), Adelaide (1874), Tasmania (1890), Queensland (1909), and Western Australia (1911).

97 Anderson and Eaton, 'Post-war reconstruction'; Forsyth, Modern Australian university; S.

Marginson, Monash: remaking the university, St Leonards: Allen and Unwin, 2000; Macintyre, The poor relation.

98 Anderson and Eaton, 'Post-war reconstruction'.

99 Forsyth, Modern Australian university; Marginson, Monash. Before this, PhD students tended to study in Britain.

100 Anderson and Eaton, 'Post-war reconstruction'; Macintyre, The poor relation.

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Growth of student numbers in the 1940s and 1950s increased the pressure on existing state universities, with greater teaching loads and the need to hire younger and more inexperienced staff. Additional teaching institutions were established at this time,

including the NSW University of Technology (1949) and the Newcastle University College (1951). In 1957, the Commonwealth government’s Murray Report recommended the establishment of a number of new universities, and a closer relationship between

universities, public needs, and the government.¹⁰¹ Monash University (1958), Wollongong University College (1961), Flinders University (1966), and La Trobe University (1967) were established following the Murray report. The ANU was amalgamated with the Canberra University College (CUC) in 1960, and the NSW University of Technology was transformed into the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in 1958. The 1950s and 1960s were the ‘golden era’ for higher education expansion.

For Australia’s economic history community, this institutional expansion led to more scholars and space for the subject.¹⁰² In the 1950s and 1960s, the numbers of economic historians expanded primarily at the ANU, with other groupings at the University of Sydney, the University of Melbourne, and Monash University. The establishment of newer universities meant there was some decentralisation of appointments in the 1970s and 1980s. Greater emphasis on research also meant a shift towards domestic graduate training. The ANU dominated PhD studies in economic history throughout the 1950s and 1960s, but this also decentralised in the latter decades to include students from Sydney, UNSW, Monash, Melbourne, and the University of Western Australia (UWA).¹⁰³

Until 1960, there was only one department in economic history – at the University of Melbourne.¹⁰⁴ Elsewhere, appointments were made and students were trained within economics or commerce groups. In a small number of cases, the subject was institutionally connected to the humanities, such as the co-operation between the Economics and Arts faculties in the teaching of economic history at the University of Adelaide.¹⁰⁵ Separate departments in economic history emerged, for the most part, in the 1960s and early

101 K. Murray, I. Ross, C. Morris, A. Reid and J. Richards, Report of the Committee on Australian Universities, September 1957, Canberra: Commonwealth Government,, 1957.

102 The expansion of staff for economic history was comparable to parent disciplines in the 1960s and 1970s, performing better than these groups in the 1970s and 1980s. See chapters 6 and 8.

103 See discussions of PhD supervision in chapters 6 and 8.

104 This was established in 1945.

105 Anderson and O'Neil, Economics at Adelaide.

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1970s.¹⁰⁶ This was due to the expansion of personnel, intellectual successes, graduate training, and greater general professionalisation of the community. It was also part of general restructuring to accommodate the growth of universities, with economic history departments established around the same time as departments for other fields. The expansionary mood of the ANU supported Noel Butlin’s petition for a separate department in the 1960s.¹⁰⁷ Groenewegen has argued that the size of the University of Sydney’s

Faculty of Economics was the primary reason for division into separate departments.¹⁰⁸ Similarly, Dingle has commented that size was a major factor leading to the division of Monash’s Faculty of Economics and Political Science (ECOPS).¹⁰⁹ At Flinders, the economic history group was established independently from faculty restructures.¹¹⁰ No separate departments were established at the Universities of Queensland, Adelaide or UWA.

Instead, scholars were integrated into large economics groups.

The expansion of Australia’s economic history field was thus inherently tied to the higher education environment. Greater emphasis on research, more students, and more funding was a favourable context in which to build an intellectual community. More personnel and graduate students fostered interactions between scholars, and allowed for joint activities and the diffusion of knowledge. The establishment of separate departments reinforced these ties. The institutional ‘home’ of economic history – within economics or business faculties – determined, to some degree, the connections economic historians had, and the intellectual characteristics of the group. These institutional trends are examined in more detail in chapters 6 and 8.

5.3. Conclusions

This chapter has outlined the long-term intellectual and institutional context of Australia’s economic history field. The subject was initially conceived as a contribution to the

economics discipline through the German Historical School. Since then, the field has had a number of co-existing (or competing) traditions that emphasise different aspects of the humanities and social sciences. The field came of age with modern universities in the early

106 ANU Faculties (1961), the ANU Institute (1962), UNE (1965), Flinders (1968), Sydney (1969), UNSW (1970), and Monash (1972). La Trobe was exceptional, establishing a department in 1990.

107 Foster, Interview with Noel George Butlin.

108 Groenewegen, Educating for business, p.79.

109 Dingle correspondence, 05.11.2015.

110 See Flinders University Calendar 1969, p.18. The department had no staff until Seymour Broadbridge was appointed in 1970.

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twentieth century. In Australia, there were only scattered practitioners throughout the interwar period, with the intellectual foundations provided by Coghlan and the ‘analytical school’. In the post-WWII decades, most industrialised nations experienced rapid

expansion of their higher education sector. The economic history field was able to access more resources, integrating itself as a major component of social science teaching and research. The Australian community was part of a global economic history field,

expansion of their higher education sector. The economic history field was able to access more resources, integrating itself as a major component of social science teaching and research. The Australian community was part of a global economic history field,