An interview with Clem Tisdell

Dollery, Brian; Wallis, Joe

doi:10.1108/03068299610121697

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Background
Why did you choose to become an economist? Have you any regrets?
Which teachers had an important influence on your academic development?
Do you regret staying in Australia?
Do you think being “down under” brings a distinct perspective on economic issues?
Have you read a lot outside of economics? What non‐economic literature has had an important influence on your work?
Are you a religious person? Do your religious beliefs inform your work?
You have you been a prolific publisher of both books and articles. What are your work habits?
Could you comment on the reasons for writing individual books?
Viewed as a whole, there seem to be striking similarities between your career and that of Kenneth Boulding. What do you think of this comparison? What is your opinion of Boulding’s work? Do you think he has received significant recognition and attention from within the economics profession?
Are there some features of your academic career that might not be generally known to other economists?
On economists
What do you perceive the role as an economist to be?
In what ways has the general perception of this role changed over the last 25 years?
What problems do you see with these developments?
What is your assessment of the advice economists tend to give policy makers?
To what extent do you think Australian economists have made an original contribution to the development of economics in general, and social economics in particular?
How do you view recent developments in higher education in Australia, especially with regard to economics?
You have collaborated a lot with economists from LDCs. Have you found such collaboration worthwhile?
Do you find it difficult getting access to mainstream forums for your ideas?
Do you find your work has found more acceptance outside mainstream networks in the USA and UK?
Which international institutions have provided a helpful forum for your work?
On neoclassical economics
You have written two widely used microeconomics textbooks and yet your recent work reflects a more critical stance with regard to neoclassical economics. What factors have contributed towards your increasing disenchantment with mainstream theory?
What have been some significant theoretical developments in mainstream economics over the last 25 years?
What is your assessment of the trend towards “economic imperialism”?
Do you think it is important that every would‐be economist receives a solid grounding in orthodox microeconomics?
What are your views on the trend towards increasing mathematization of economic models?
How would you summarize your critique of neoclassical economics? Is it unrealistic, unscientific or irrelevant?
Do you think welfare economics is too rigid in its assertion of consumer sovereignty?
On development economics
What is your view on the status in the economics profession of development economics?
How far can traditional welfare economics go towards addressing development issues?
You have examined the developmental issues facing small nations. Do you think this is a fruitful field of enquiry for other development economists?
Which standard techniques have you found useful in the applied work you have done on problems facing LDCs?
To what extent do you think that a multidisciplinary approach to development is appropriate?
How important is the cultural dimension to economic development? Is it possible to analyse this dimension within an orthodox economic framework?
The policy advice given to particular LDCs is often based on lessons drawn from the experience of other countries. In much of your work you sound a cautionary note about such lesson‐drawing. Under what circumstances do you consider it to be appropriate?
What advice would you give planners in LDCs who are seeking to attract corporate investors from abroad?
There is a growing pessimism among mainstream economists about the role of planning in economic development. How would you respond to this pessimism?
What is your response to the burgeoning literature on government failure? Do you think development economists need to take more account of this literature?
Under what circumstances do you think the inter‐country co‐operation required to address the development problems facing LDCs is most appropriately sought at the regional rather than global level?
What is your assessment of the role international institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF have played in promoting economic development? Have you observed significant changes in this role over the last 25 years?
What adjustments would you like to see in the institutions and practices of international bodies concerned with the development of LDCs?
Many observers have expressed the view that the process of world development actually went backwards in the 1980s. Can you comment on this? What do you consider to be the most urgent problems which need to be addressed if there is to be a more equitable pattern of development over the next 20 years?
Are you generally pessimistic about the development prospects of LDCs?
On environmental issues
A large part of your work has focused on developmental and environmental issues. Do you see these issues being interrelated?
How would you access conventional cost‐benefit analysis approaches to environmental risk and uncertainty?
What is your view of the modelling approach proposed by “evolutionary economists”?
In macroeconomics modern Keynesians have increasingly taken issue with their neoclassical counterparts over the nature of uncertainty and whether it can be treated in a probabilistic way. In what respects do you see this issue as being relevant to environmental economics?
How significant do you consider the ethical dimension of resource conservation to be?
How useful has Rawls’ Theory of Justice been in specifying criteria of equity which can be applied to the issue of resource conservation?
Is it ever legitimate to propose that individual preferences should be changed through adjustments in institutions and educational processes so that societies attach a higher value to resource conservation than consumption?
What do you consider to be the most important components of the concept of sustainable development?
A number of different concepts of sustainability have been advanced by various writers. Which do you consider to be interesting and useful?
What do you consider to be the most important trade‐offs faced in the pursuit of sustainability?
What do you see as being the major stumbling blocks to achieving environmental sustainability at the national and international level?
Have you observed a change in the attitudes of leading conservationists to economic growth over the last 25 years?
Do you still take seriously the concerns about future resource depletion which surfaced in the 1970s, most notably in the Club of Rome report?
Do you think the issues raised by Schumacher in Small is Beautiful are still relevant to development and environmental economics?
On social economics
In 1977 William Dugger characterized “social economics” to be value‐directed, ameliorative, activist, holistic and viewing society as an organic whole. To what extent do you regard yourself as being a social economist in these terms?
How useful have you found the institutionalist perspective on economic issues to be?
During the 1980s there was a resurgence of communitarianism in political philosophy. Do you think it would be worthwhile for “social economists” to explore the relevance to their concerns of some of the issues raised in this literature?
What are the important issues facing social economists in the next century?
How can social economists gain access to a more mainstream audience?
Let’s say you have a student who shows an interest in some of the issues which concern social economists. On what areas would you advise this person to focus their future study and research?
On advice to young economists
What advice would you give yourself if you were embarking on a career in economics now?
Is econometrics an important skill for the would‐be professional economist to have?
In a survey of students of top‐ranking graduate programmes in the USA which David Colander and Arjo Klamer conducted in 1987 they found that when asked what abilities were likely to place them on a “fast track” in the academic economics profession most found “being smart in the sense of being good at problem‐solving” and “excellence in mathematics” to be “very important” while “knowledge of the economy” and “knowledge of the economics literature” did not rate highly. How would you respond to the results of this survey?
You have not shied away from seeking a multidisciplinary perspective which combines insights from ecology and economics on, for example, environmental problems. How would you assess the personal costs and benefits to young economists in pursuing this type of multidisciplinary approach to their research?
You have on occasion criticized mainstream economics for its tendency to become too compartmentalized, for its failure to take account of the interdependence between economic, environmental, demographic, political and social issues in a complex world. Given the explosive growth of academic literature within different fields and the increasing inaccessibility of this literature to lay readers, how can economists keep up to date with developments in other fields without leaving themselves open to charges of superficial “faddishness”.
A lot of your work reflects a concern with “big issues” such as the sustainability of global development. Is there still scope for bright young economists to make a career of exploring these issues?
On future directions
What research projects are you currently working on?
What likely forms will your research work take in the near future?
Do you have specific research themes you intend to pursue in the longer term?
References

Viewpoint| April 01 1996

An interview with Clem Tisdell

Brian Dollery;

Brian Dollery

Department of Economics, University of New England, Armidale, Australia

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Joe Wallis

Department of Economics, Otago University, Dunedin, New Zealand

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Author & Article Information

Publisher: Emerald Publishing

Online ISSN: 1758-6712

Print ISSN: 0306-8293

1996

International Journal of Social Economics (1996) 23 (4-5-6): 20–48.

https://doi.org/10.1108/03068299610121697

Clem Tisdell is one of Australia’s pre‐eminent economists who has made decisive contributions in several areas of economics, perhaps most notably development economics, environmental economics and natural resource economics. Tisdell is presently Professor of Economics at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and is also a long‐standing member of the editorial advisory board of the International Journal of Social Economics. This interview, which falls in the tradition of Klamer, was recorded in his Brisbane home in November 1995 and seeks to explore Tisdell’s extraordinary career, the development of his thinking about economics in general and his prodigious research output in particular. Tisdell answered the questions in his customary quietly‐spoken and good‐humoured manner.

1996

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