The emigres who helped shape the nation

Economists Fred Gruen and Max Corden had a profound effect on the development of economics in this country.

The late Fred Gruen had a significant impact on Australian economics.

In Australian economics, some of the greatest contributions have been made by people who have been displaced.

The collapse of Afghanistan and the invasion of Ukraine remind us of the great displacement that occurred during World War II. It is worth recalling that as a result of this war, a group of Jewish emigres to Australia had a profound influence on the economics discipline here – on economic ideas, the standard of economics education and research, and in public policy. They would become esteemed professors of economics: Heinz Arndt, Helen Hughes, Geoff Harcourt, Fred Gruen and Max Corden, who is still alive.

During the 1930s, Corden’s family had foreseen the crisis to come for Jews in Germany and secured an Australian visa; after the release of Corden’s father from detention in 1937, they sailed to Australia.

Meanwhile, Gruen had benefited from the opportunity to go to boarding school in England, but with the onset of the world war, it was not feasible for him to return to his homeland of Austria. By 1940, he was interned.

He was later bound for Australia with other internees on the ship Dunera before being interned again at Hay in NSW in a camp that would become renowned for its great “intellectual atmosphere”.

Both men would have a major influence on Australia’s trade policy (though their interests in economic policy were wide-ranging).

Corden describes his two direct contributions to trade policy as the change in measurement from nominal to effective protection in Australia, and the case for tariff reform with an accompanying exchange rate adjustment.

Gruen was also focused on the benefits of free trade and the design of policies to support it. He played the key role in securing the 25 per cent reduction in tariffs applied to Australian imports in 1973. Together, Corden (who had a distinguished academic career and is now an emeritus professor at Johns Hopkins University and a professorial fellow at Melbourne University) and Gruen (who died in 1997 after a long career at the Australian National University) did much to dismantle trade barriers, open Australia’s economy and drive reforms that would substantially increase the nation’s economic prosperity.