Ian Harper
University of Melbourne
Collaborating Network
Affiliations
Professor Emeritus of the University of Melbourne
Biography
Ian Harper is a professional economist best known for his work in public policy. He is a member of the Monetary Policy Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia, chairs the Australian Statistics Advisory Council and advises Kearney Australia New Zealand as a member of its Advisory Group.
For six years until November 2023, Ian was Dean & Director of Melbourne Business School and Co-Dean of the Faculty of Business & Economics at The University of Melbourne. Prior to that, he was a founding partner of Deloitte Access Economics for seven years.
From March 2014 to March 2015, Ian chaired the Australian Government’s Competition Policy Review and, prior to that, served as inaugural Chairman of the Australian Fair Pay Commission from December 2005 to July 2009. From May to December 1995, Ian chaired the Melbourne Metropolitan Hospitals Planning Board for the Victorian Government.
Ian was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 2000 and a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors in 2009. In 2016 he was elected a Distinguished Public Policy Fellow of the Economic Society of Australia and in 2024 was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Economics by The University of Queensland.
Ian was appointed an Officer in the Order of Australia in the 2020 Queen’s Birthday Honours List with the citation, “For distinguished service to education in the field of economics, and to public and monetary policy development and reform”.
Ian is married to Roslyn and they have two sons and six grandchildren.
Research Focus
Australian macroeconomic policy, financial institutions and their regulation, competition policy and minimum wages.
GFI Writings
Ian Harper
University of Melbourne
Virtue Ethics and Central Banking
Central Bank Concerns with Price Stability and Inflation # Central banks are charged with maintaining price stability. Strictly speaking, if prices were stable, they would neither rise nor fall. In practice, prices rising slowly but predictably are less damaging to the economy than prices fal…
Ian Harper
University of Melbourne
What's Just and Prudent About Setting Interest Rates?
I very much enjoyed reading Jennifer’s Preview of The Virtues . I related most directly to her discussion in the context of my work as a public policy economist. Here I regularly bump up against the limits of purely technical analysis and reach for (primarily) the cardinal virtues in making a …