About the Arndt-Corden Department of Economics

The Arndt-Corden Department of Economics is headed by Professor Peter Warr. It works on theoretical and applied problems of international economics and development, with emphasis on the countries of Southeast, Northeast and South Asia, and the Southwest Pacific. The late Professor H.W. Arndt was the first head of the department, and Professor W. Max Corden the second. The work of Heinz Arndt is well-known throughout Asia, especially within Indonesia, whereas Max Corden's fame is greatest among international economists. Both played crucial formative roles in the intellectual history of the Department.

Members of the Department are intensively engaged in research, PhD student supervision and teaching corresponding to this mission. The distinctive feature of the Department, and the key to its enduring academic success, is the intersection, within the same individuals, of two different but complementary forms of expertise: a high level of disciplinary competence in the relevant fields of applied economics; and deep regional knowledge, supplemented by extensive on-the-ground experience.

The Department currently has active interests in macroeconomics and finance, agriculture, industrialisation, the economics of poverty, labour migration, environmental policy, decentralisation, and international trade and capital flows. It is home to Centres that specialise in the economics of South Asia (the Australia-South Asia Research Centre), Indonesia (the Indonesia Project), and Poverty (Poverty Research Centre).