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11 - Australia: Geography and Institutions

from Part I - Regional Developments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2021

By
David Meredith
Edited by
Stephen Broadberry  and
Kyoji Fukao
Stephen Broadberry
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Kyoji Fukao
Affiliation:
Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo
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Summary

Geography and institutions both shaped Australia’s economic history. After 60,000 years continuous civilization, about 1 million people lived in all parts of the continent in 1700. Aridity, climatic unpredictability, and infertile soil influenced the development of a hunter-gatherer economy that was characterized by sophisticated technologies for food production, especially land management through fire, and kin-based distribution that ensured more than mere survival. Economic activity was governed by gender and age. There was considerable human and social capital in Aboriginal society. Competition for land arrived with British convicts in 1788 and accelerated with gold discovery in 1851 attracting more people, capital and impetus to self-government. A herding economy based on wool exports, food exports, and a busy coastal urban economy permitted a small European population very high real GDP per head from 1830, possibly the highest in the world. The absence of diseases dangerous to Europeans and low levels of income inequality underpinned their high average living standards. The impact of the European economy on the indigenous people caused a devastating depopulation of about two-thirds from starvation, European diseases, and settler violence, producing a stark contrast between the condition of the original population and the newcomers by 1870.

Keywords

geographyinstitutionsindigenoushunter-gatherereconomic growthagriculturesettler-economy
Type
Chapter
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The Cambridge Economic History of the Modern World , pp. 265 - 286
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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