Colin Clark (economist)

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Colin Clark (1962)

Colin Grant Clark (born November 2, 1905 in London , † September 4, 1989 in Brisbane ) was a British-Australian economist .

Career

After graduating in chemistry in 1928, he worked as a research assistant to William Henry Beveridge at the London School of Economics and Political Science until 1929 . In 1930 he went as a research assistant to the National Economic Advisory Council , which advised the British government on economic issues. During his time as a lecturer in statistics at the University of Cambridge (1931-1938) he wrote three books. In 1931 he married Marjorine Tattersall, with whom he raised 8 children.

During a stay in Australia and New Zealand (1937-1938) he decided to stay in Queensland . On May 6, 1938, the Queensland regional government appointed him government statistician, director of the industrial bureau and financial advisor to the finance minister. Despite his many offices, he found time for more books. In 1940 he wrote a book about the three economic sectors , namely agriculture / fishing / forestry with decreasing yields ( primary sector ; in a broader sense also mining : land-intensive ), industry with increasing yields ( secondary sector ; capital-intensive ) and services ( tertiary sector , Residual sector ; labor or knowledge intensive ). In it, Clark presented a concept based on Allan GB Fisher from 1935 on the three-sector hypothesis , according to which the service sector is less important in underdeveloped countries ( agricultural countries ) than in industrialized countries . The three-sector hypothesis was based on the observation that per capita income rises as employment in agriculture falls and industry increases. Clark called 1957 in the last edition of this book, the remaining group of economic activities ( residual sector ) no more than tertiary production, but as a "service industry" ( English service industries ) and counted also refer to the construction , transport and traffic , trade and finance , public administration and private services.

On February 28, 1947, he took over the post of Undersecretary of the Ministry of Labor and Industry. In 1951 he left Queensland and took on a second position in Rome and in 1952 at the University of Chicago before moving to Oxford University that same year . He spent 17 years here and returned to Australia in 1969 as director of the Institute for Economic Progress at Monash University ( Melbourne ). In 1978 he moved to the University of Queensland , where he stayed until his death in 1989. In 1978 he became a corresponding member of the British Academy .

Books

In addition to numerous articles in specialist journals, he wrote a large number of books. His first published in 1932 ( "The National Income", German  National income ), followed by (among others with Pigou () 1936 "The Economic Position of Great Britain" German  The economic position of Great Britain ), 1937 "National Income and Outlay" ( German  national income and costs ), 1939 “A Critique of Russian Statistics” ( German  A critique of the statistics in Russia ), 1958 “Australian Hopes and Fears” ( German  Australian hopes and fears ); his last book in 1982 was called "Regional and Urban Location" ( German  regional and urban locations ).

meaning

Clark is not one of the most famous economists of the 20th century, but he was the first to undertake calculations of the national income (1932) according to William Petty and created the basis and elements of recording the gross domestic product (1945) that are still used today. Like Petty, Clark saw national income as a politically relevant economic indicator for international comparisons. Despite numerous publications, the British government saw no need for national income to be calculated for a long time. He also developed the concept of economic growth as measured by the growth rate of national income.

Web links

Commons : Colin Clark (economist)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Julio A Gonzalo / Manuel Alfonseca / Félix-Fernando Muñoz, World Population: Past, Present, & Future , 2016, p. 63 f.
  2. ^ Colin Clark, The conditions of economic progress , 1940, p. 492
  3. ↑ Roger Skurski, Soviet Marketing and Economic Development , 1983, p 26
  4. ^ Colin Clark, The conditions of economic progress , 1957, p. 375
  5. ↑ Wolfgang van Dawen, Balance and Imbalance as Terms in the Discussion of Economic Growth in Underdeveloped Countries , 1966, p. 96
  6. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed May 14, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Daniel Speich-Chassé, The Invention of the Gross National Product , 2013, p. 41 ff.
personal data
SURNAME Clark, Colin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Clark, Colin Grant (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British economist
DATE OF BIRTH November 2, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH 4th September 1989
Place of death Brisbane