27 September 2004

Economics Professor John Quiggin has topped an Australian Hall of Fame for economists.

The academic from UQ’s School of Economics and School of Political Science and International Science, outranked nine star economists for quantity and quality of journal publications in the latest edition of the Economics Bulletin.

Two Macquarie University researchers sifted through 375 journals between 1988-2000 to rate 600 economists from Australian teaching departments.

They used eight different measures of research output using journal rankings based on the number of citations and journal reputations.

Professor Quiggin was in the top three on all eight measures.

Earlier this year he won the Australian Citation Laureate for economics, which recognises prolific researchers as measured by United States Publishers Thomson-ISI, which tallies an author’s published and quoted works.

Last year, Professor Quiggin’s Murray-Darling project won a Federation Fellowship from the Australian Research Council – a program designed to keep top researchers in Australia.

He is continuing this work applying economics of uncertainty to the sustainable management of the Murray-Darling Basin.

Other UQ economists who ranked highly in the Economics Bulletin, were Professor Clem Tisdell, Associate Professor Anthony Makin, Dr Neil Karunaratne and Dr Phil Bodman.

Professor Quiggin said he had an advantage over some economists because he had a full-time research job.

Asked what drove him to be such a prolific contributor, Professor Quiggin said: “This is just what I like doing”.

For more information contact: Professor Quiggin on (0400 485 202, 07 3346 9646, j.quiggin@uq.edu.au) or Miguel Holland at UQ communications on (3655 2619, m.holland@uq.edu.au)