The Faculty of Business and Economics acknowledges the loss of Emeritus Professor Alan Powell AM, whose work shaped the development of econometrics in Australia. He passed away on November 3 at the age of 88.
Alan was born in 1937 and completed his undergraduate training with honours in agricultural economics in 1958 at the University of Sydney. He was awarded his PhD in 1963 for a dissertation “A National Fodder Reserve for the Wool Industry – An Economic and Statistical Analysis” and went on to study in Chicago for a postdoctoral fellowship in political economy in 1964, where he was influenced by leading economists and statisticians such as Arnold Zellner and Zvi Griliches.
During his time in Chicago, Alan worked on empirical estimates of consumer expenditure in Australia, which were published in Econometrica in 1966. Following this, Alan was offered a Senior Lectureship at Monash University by Fred and Don Cochrane (Dean and Head of Economics) and later became the first Professor of Econometrics at an Australian university.
A pioneer in econometric research and teaching, Emeritus Professor Powell AM was the main founder of formal econometrics in Australia and the driving force behind the IMPACT Project, a cooperative venture between the Australian Federal Government and the University of Melbourne, La Trobe University and the Australian National University. The project provided policy information systems to assist others to carry out independent analysis.
Alan taught economics at Monash University and, from 1971 to 1973, took sabbatical and extended leave at the Development Research Center at the World Bank. During his time in Washington, he was invited to lead a team at the Industries Assistance Commission (IAC) to build policy analytical tools to support discipline and objectivity in trade policy advice. This led to the establishment of the IMPACT Project, which was later housed at the University of Melbourne, where Alan held the Ritchie Chair from 1979 to 1991.
Alan recruited and led an exceptionally talented and diverse team of economists within the IMPACT Project. Their prodigious research output is catalogued in “A Decade of Applied General Equilibrium Modelling at the University of Melbourne”, published in Economic Papers (March 1993).
Emeritus Professor Powell returned to Monash in 1991 as a Personal Chair in Econometrics, teaching macroeconomic modelling, and retired in 2000. He was elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society in 1988, named a Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Society of Australia in 1998, and appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for his outstanding contributions to economics and public policy.
The Faculty of Business and Economics extends its sincerest sympathies to Alan’s family and friends. Emeritus Professor Alan Powell AM will be remembered as a dear colleague, a pioneering leader, a dedicated educator and an eminent Australian economist.