Economics : Faculty of Economics and Commerce : The University of Melbourne

News and events

Professor Jeff Borland has been appointed to the Chair of Australian Studies at Harvard. This is a most prestigious appointment and Jeff is the first economist for a number of years to be appointed to this position.

The Australian Chair at Harvard was established by a gift from the Australian Government to Harvard in 1976 and since that time a number of eminent scholars from a range of disciplines have held this Chair. Jeff will commence his appointment in mid 2010.
Congratulations to Dr. David Pitt of the Centre for Actuarial Studies who was awarded the 2008 H.M. Jackson prize by the Institute of Actuaries of Australia for his paper 'Modelling the claim duration of income protection insurance policyholders using parametric mixture models' which was published in Annals of Actuarial Science. The Jackson Prize is awarded annually by the Institute for the best research publication outside the Institute by an Institute member in the previous year.
Congratulations to Associate Professor Donald MacLaren who received the Quality of Policy Contribution Award from the European Association of Agricultural Economists in 2008.
Associate Professor Neville Norman was awarded a “Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management” from the Australian Institute of Management in 2008. He was also awarded the Official Visiting Research Scholar: July – October 2008 from the Faculty of Economics, Cambridge U.K.

John Freebairn was reported in relation to recent policies of inflation. The Australian, Thursday 22 May, 2008, page 2.
Rhonda Smith was reported in relation to the possible merger of Westpac with St. George Bank. The Age, Tuesday 13 May, 2008, page 2.
Neville Norman was interviewed in relation to the Federal budget, which was leaked before its official announcement. ABC 774 Melbourne, Tuesday 13 May, 2008.