Colin Clark
Encyclopedia
Colin Grant Clark was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and Australian economist
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...

 and statistician
Statistician
A statistician is someone who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. The core of that work is to measure, interpret, and describe the world and human activity patterns within it...

 who worked in both the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. He pioneered the use of the gross national product ("GNP") as the basis for studying national economies.

Biography

Colin Clark was born in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 in 1905 and was educated at the Dragon School
Dragon School
The Dragon School is a British coeducational, preparatory school in the city of Oxford, founded in 1877 as the Oxford Preparatory School, or OPS. It is primarily known as a boarding school, although it also takes day pupils...

 in Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

. He then studied at Winchester College
Winchester College
Winchester College is an independent school for boys in the British public school tradition, situated in Winchester, Hampshire, the former capital of England. It has existed in its present location for over 600 years and claims the longest unbroken history of any school in England...

, then at Brasenose College Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

  where he graduated in Chemistry in 1928. After graduation he worked as a research assistant with William Beveridge
William Beveridge
William Henry Beveridge, 1st Baron Beveridge KCB was a British economist and social reformer. He is best known for his 1942 report Social Insurance and Allied Services which served as the basis for the post-World War II welfare state put in place by the Labour government elected in 1945.Lord...

 at the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...

 (1928–29) and then with Sir Alexander Carr-Saunders
Alexander Carr-Saunders
Sir Alexander Morris Carr-Saunders, KBE, FBA was an English biologist and sociologist.Carr-Saunders was born in Reigate, Surrey and educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford where he gained a 1st in zoology in 1908...

 and Allyn Young at the University of Liverpool
University of Liverpool
The University of Liverpool is a teaching and research university in the city of Liverpool, England. It is a member of the Russell Group of large research-intensive universities and the N8 Group for research collaboration. Founded in 1881 , it is also one of the six original "red brick" civic...

 (1929–30). During this time he ran unsuccessful campaigns for the British Labour Party in the parliamentary seat of North Dorset
North Dorset
North Dorset is a local government district in Dorset, England. It is largely rural, but includes the towns of Blandford Forum, Gillingham, Shaftesbury, Stalbridge and Sturminster Newton. Much of North Dorset is in the River Stour valley and is called the Blackmore Vale...

 (1929), and later for Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

 (1930) and Wavertree
Wavertree
Wavertree is an area of Liverpool, in Merseyside, England, and is a Liverpool City Council ward. It is bordered by a number of districts to the south and east of Liverpool city centre from Toxteth, Edge Hill, Fairfield, Old Swan, Childwall and Mossley Hill....

 and South Norfolk
South Norfolk
South Norfolk is a local government district in Norfolk, England. Its council is based in Long Stratton.-History:The district was formed on April 1, 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, as a merger of Diss Urban District, Wymondham Urban District, Depwade Rural District, Forehoe and Henstead...

 (1935). In 1930 he was appointed a research assistant to the Economic Advisory Council newly convened by Prime Minister Ramsay McDonald. He resigned shortly after his appointment, after being asked to write a background memorandum to make a case for protectionism
Protectionism
Protectionism is the economic policy of restraining trade between states through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, restrictive quotas, and a variety of other government regulations designed to allow "fair competition" between imports and goods and services produced domestically.This...

. Despite this, he had sufficiently impressed one of the council members (John Maynard Keynes
John Maynard Keynes
John Maynard Keynes, Baron Keynes of Tilton, CB FBA , was a British economist whose ideas have profoundly affected the theory and practice of modern macroeconomics, as well as the economic policies of governments...

) to secure an appointment as a lecturer in statistics at Cambridge University.

He was a lecturer in Statistics in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...

 from 1931 to 1938 where he completed three books: "The National Income 1924-31" (1932), "The Economic Position of Great Britain" (jointly with A.C Pigou
Arthur Cecil Pigou
Arthur Cecil Pigou was an English economist. As a teacher and builder of the school of economics at the University of Cambridge he trained and influenced many Cambridge economists who went on to fill chairs of economics around the world...

) (1936) and "National Income and Outlay" (1937). His first book was sent to the publisher Daniel Macmillan
Daniel MacMillan
Daniel MacMillan was a Scottish publisher from the Isle of Arran, Scotland.Daniel MacMillan was born in the Isle of Arran to a crofting family...

 with a recommendation from Keynes
John Maynard Keynes
John Maynard Keynes, Baron Keynes of Tilton, CB FBA , was a British economist whose ideas have profoundly affected the theory and practice of modern macroeconomics, as well as the economic policies of governments...

:


"[...] 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."


During a visit to Australia and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 in 1937 and 1938 he accepted a position with the Queensland Government at the invitation of the premier Forgan Smith
William Forgan Smith
William Forgan Smith , generally known as Forgan Smith, was Premier of the Australian state of Queensland from 1932 to 1942. He came to dominate politics in the state during the 1930s, and his populism, firm leadership, defence of states' rights and interest in state development make him something...

. 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' It was around this time that he converted to Catholicism, to which he remained faithful for the rest of his life.

On 6 May 1938, he was appointed Government Statistician, Director of the Bureau of Industry, and Financial Advisor to 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 in Economics and preparing his book "Conditions of Economic Progress" which was published in 1940.

In 1951 he took a secondment to the Food and Agriculture Organization
Food and Agriculture Organization
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is a specialised agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Serving both developed and developing countries, FAO acts as a neutral forum where all nations meet as equals to negotiate agreements and...

 in Rome (1951) and then to the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 (1952) before taking the Directorship of the Institute for Agricultural Economics at Oxford University (1952–69). He returned to Australia in 1969 as the Director of the Institute of Economic Progress at Monash University
Monash University
Monash University is a public university based in Melbourne, Victoria. It was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. Monash is a member of Australia's Group of Eight and the ASAIHL....

 (1969–78) and finally as a Research Consultant to the Department of Economics at the University of Queensland
University of Queensland
The University of Queensland, also known as UQ, is a public university located in state of Queensland, Australia. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest and largest university in Queensland and the fifth oldest in the nation...

 until his death in 1989.

Richard Stone
Richard Stone
Sir John Richard Nicholas Stone was an eminent British economist who in 1984 received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for developing an accounting model that could be used to track economic activities on a national and, later, an international scale...

, in his Nobel Prize Lecture, paid tribute to Clark's influence on his work:


"[...] the restoration of the synthetic vision of the political arithmeticians came in the 1930’s with the work of Colin Clark who in 1937, in his National Income and Outlay brought together estimates of income, output, consumers’ expenditure, government revenue and expenditure, capital formation, saving, foreign trade and the balance of payments. Although he did not set his figures in an accounting framework it is clear that they came fairly close to consistency. Clark was my teacher at Cambridge and his work was the main source of inspiration for mine."


He was on the Council of the Econometrics Society from 1948 to 1952.

In 1984 he was named by the World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...

 as one of the pioneers of development http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187283&siteName=WDS&entityID=000178830_98101901520025 along with Sir Arthur Lewis, Gunnar Myrdal
Gunnar Myrdal
Karl Gunnar Myrdal was a Swedish Nobel Laureate economist, sociologist, and politician. In 1974, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Friedrich Hayek for "their pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for their penetrating analysis of the...

, W.W. Rostow and Jan Tinbergen
Jan Tinbergen
Jan Tinbergen , was a Dutch economist. He was awarded the first Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel in 1969, which he shared with Ragnar Frisch for having developed and applied dynamic models for the analysis of economic processes...

.

In 1987 Clark was together with Professor Trevor Swan
Trevor Swan
Trevor Winchester Swan was an Australian economist. He is best known for his work on the neoclassical model of economic growth, published simultaneously with that of Robert Solow, for his work on integrating internal and external balance, represented by the Swan diagram and for pioneering work in...

 the first recipient of the Distinguished Fellow awards, presented by The Economic Society of Australia.

Colin Clark is buried at the Mount Gravatt Cemetery in Brisbane, Australia.

Clark married Margery Tattersall in 1931 and they had 8 sons and 1 daughter who in turned produced a total of 40 grandchildren.

Honours

  • HonDEcon Tilburg University http://www.tilburguniversity.nl/university/doctorates/, DLitt Oxford University, HonDSc University of Milan
    University of Milan
    The University of Milan is a higher education institution in Milan, Italy. It is one of the largest universities in Europe, with about 62,801 students, a teaching and research staff of 2,455 and a non-teaching staff of 2,200....

    , Hon DEcon, Monash University
    Monash University
    Monash University is a public university based in Melbourne, Victoria. It was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. Monash is a member of Australia's Group of Eight and the ASAIHL....

    , http://www.adm.monash.edu.au/records-archives/archives/honorarygraduates/honorarygraduates-80-89.html HonDEcon University of Queensland
    University of Queensland
    The University of Queensland, also known as UQ, is a public university located in state of Queensland, Australia. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest and largest university in Queensland and the fifth oldest in the nation...

    .
  • Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy
    British Academy
    The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national body for the humanities and the social sciences. Its purpose is to inspire, recognise and support excellence in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value.It receives an annual...

    . http://www.britac.ac.uk/fellowship/directory/deceased.cfm?type=cor
  • Fellow of the Econometric Society
    Econometric Society
    The Econometric Society is an international society for the advancement of economic theory in its relation with statistics and mathematics. It was founded on December 29, 1930 at the Stalton Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio....

     http://www.econometricsociety.org/inmemoriam.asp.
  • Distinguished Fellow Award, The Economic Society of Australia. http://www.ecosoc.org.au/awards
  • Annual Colin Clark Memorial Lecture http://www.uq.edu.au/economics/index.html?page=59054&pid=0.
  • The Australasian Meeting of the Econometric Society
    Econometric Society
    The Econometric Society is an international society for the advancement of economic theory in its relation with statistics and mathematics. It was founded on December 29, 1930 at the Stalton Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio....

     has a Colin Clark Lecture at its meetings.
  • Colin Clark Building at The University of Queensland
    University of Queensland
    The University of Queensland, also known as UQ, is a public university located in state of Queensland, Australia. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest and largest university in Queensland and the fifth oldest in the nation...

     http://www.library.uq.edu.au/ecob/.
  • Colin Clark room at Queensland Treasury.


Colin Clark Memorial Lecture

Started in 1991, the Colin Clark Memorial Lecture is held annually "to recognise the contribution to economics made by Colin Clark whose work on national income accounting was fundamentally important to the development of macroeconomics
Macroeconomics
Macroeconomics is a branch of economics dealing with the performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of the whole economy. This includes a national, regional, or global economy...

 and central to the approach of John Maynard Keynes that was so widely adopted after the Second World War." A list of those who have given the lecture can be found on the University of Queensland website http://www.uq.edu.au/economics/index.html?page=59054&pid=0

The 19th Annual Colin Clark Memorial Lecture was given by Dr David Gruen, Executive Director, Macroeconomic Group, Australian Treasury and co-authored by one of Colin Clark's grandsons, Colin Clark, who is also with the Treasury. http://www.treasury.gov.au/documents/1663/HTML/docshell.asp?URL=Colin_Clark_Memorial_Lecture_11_Nov_2009.htm

Selected Papers

  • "A System of Equations Explaining the United States Trade Cycle, 1921 to 1941," Econometrica
    Econometrica
    Econometrica is a peer-reviewed academic journal of economics, publishing articles not only in econometrics but in many areas of economics. It is published by the Econometric Society and distributed by Wiley-Blackwell. Econometrica is one of the most highly ranked economics journals in the world...

    ,
    Vol. 17, No. 2 (Apr., 1949), pp. 93–124.

  • "The Economic Functions of a City in Relation to Its Size," Econometrica
    Econometrica
    Econometrica is a peer-reviewed academic journal of economics, publishing articles not only in econometrics but in many areas of economics. It is published by the Econometric Society and distributed by Wiley-Blackwell. Econometrica is one of the most highly ranked economics journals in the world...

    ,
    Vol. 13, No. 2 (Apr., 1945), pp. 97–113.

  • "Economic Development in Communist China," The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 84, No. 2 (Apr., 1976), pp. 239–264.

  • "Theory of Economic Growth," Econometrica
    Econometrica
    Econometrica is a peer-reviewed academic journal of economics, publishing articles not only in econometrics but in many areas of economics. It is published by the Econometric Society and distributed by Wiley-Blackwell. Econometrica is one of the most highly ranked economics journals in the world...

    ,
    Vol. 17, Supplement: Report of the Washington Meeting (Jul., 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
    Econometrica
    Econometrica is a peer-reviewed academic journal of economics, publishing articles not only in econometrics but in many areas of economics. It is published by the Econometric Society and distributed by Wiley-Blackwell. Econometrica is one of the most highly ranked economics journals in the world...

    ,
    Vol. 17, Supplement: Report of the Washington Meeting. (Jul., 1949), pp. 255–272.

  • "A Critique of Russian Statistics by Colin Clark," Economica
    Economica
    Economica is a peer-reviewed academic journal of economics published on behalf of the London School of Economics by Wiley-Blackwell. It was established in 1934...

    ,
    May 1941, NS 8, p. 212.

  • "Russian Income and Production Statistics," The Review of Economics and Statistics
    The Review of Economics and Statistics
    The Review of Economics and Statistics is a United States peer-reviewed academic journal of applied economics. It is edited at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and published online and in hard copy by the MIT Press. The Review, founded in 1917, often focuses on quantitative...

    ,
    Vol. 29, No. 4 (Nov., 1947), pp. 215–217.

  • "Afterthoughts on Paley," The Review of Economics and Statistics
    The Review of Economics and Statistics
    The Review of Economics and Statistics is a United States peer-reviewed academic journal of applied economics. It is edited at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and published online and in hard copy by the MIT Press. The Review, founded in 1917, often focuses on quantitative...

    ,
    Vol. 36, No. 3 (Aug., 1954), pp. 267–273.

  • ""Mr. Colin Clark on the Limits of Taxation": A Rejoinder," The Review of Economics and Statistics
    The Review of Economics and Statistics
    The Review of Economics and Statistics is a United States peer-reviewed academic journal of applied economics. It is edited at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and published online and in hard copy by the MIT Press. The Review, founded in 1917, often focuses on quantitative...

    ,
    Vol. 36, No. 1 (Feb., 1954), p. 101.

  • "The New Board of Trade Indexes," The Economic Journal, Vol. 45, No. 178 (Jun., 1935), pp. 370–375.

  • "Determination of the Multiplier from National Income Statistics," The Economic Journal, Vol. 48, No. 191 (Sep., 1938), pp. 435–448.

  • "Public Finance and Changes in the Value of Money," The Economic Journal, Vol. 55, No. 220 (Dec., 1945), pp. 371–389.

  • "Further Data on the National Income," The Economic Journal, Vol. 44, No. 175 (Sep., 1934), pp. 380–397.

  • "The Value of the Pound," The Economic Journal, Vol. 59, No. 234 (Jun., 1949), pp. 198–207.

  • "National Income at Its Climax," The Economic Journal, Vol. 47, No. 186 (Jun., 1937), pp. 308–320.

  • "World Supply and Requirements of Farm Products," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society
    Journal of the Royal Statistical Society
    The Journal of the Royal Statistical Society is a series of three peer-reviewed statistics journals published by Blackwell Publishing for the London-based Royal Statistical Society.- History :...

    ,
    Series A (General), Vol. 117, No. 3 (1954), pp. 263–296

  • "Future Sources of Food Supply: Economic Problems," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society
    Journal of the Royal Statistical Society
    The Journal of the Royal Statistical Society is a series of three peer-reviewed statistics journals published by Blackwell Publishing for the London-based Royal Statistical Society.- History :...

    ,
    Series A (General), Vol. 125, No. 3 (1962), pp. 418–448

  • "Urban Population Densities," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society
    Journal of the Royal Statistical Society
    The Journal of the Royal Statistical Society is a series of three peer-reviewed statistics journals published by Blackwell Publishing for the London-based Royal Statistical Society.- History :...

    ,
    Series A (General), Vol. 114, No. 4 (1951), pp. 490–496

  • "The National Income and The Net Output of Industry," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society
    Journal of the Royal Statistical Society
    The Journal of the Royal Statistical Society is a series of three peer-reviewed statistics journals published by Blackwell Publishing for the London-based Royal Statistical Society.- History :...

    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
    Arthur Cecil Pigou
    Arthur Cecil Pigou was an English economist. As a teacher and builder of the school of economics at the University of Cambridge he trained and influenced many Cambridge economists who went on to fill chairs of economics around the world...

    , 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.
  • Population Growth and Land Use, 1967.
  • Starvation or Plenty?, 1970.
  • Poverty Before Politics, 1977.
  • The Economics of Irrigation with J. Carruthers, 1981.
  • Regional and Urban Location, 1982.

External links

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