Emeritus Professor Kym Anderson

Emeritus Professor Kym Anderson
  • Biography/ Background

    Kym Anderson is the George Gollin Professor Emeritus in the School of Economics and Public Policy, foundation Executive Director of the Wine Economics Research Centre, and formerly foundation Executive Director of the Centre for International Economic Studies at the University of ÐÂÀË²ÊÆ±, where he has been affiliated since 1984. Previously he was a Research Fellow in Economics at ANU's Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies (1977-83), following undergraduate studies at the University of New England in Armidale (1967-70), part-time Masters studies at the University of ÐÂÀË²ÊÆ± (1971-74) while working in the S.A. Department of Agriculture in ÐÂÀË²ÊÆ±, and doctoral studies at the University of Chicago and Stanford University (1974-77). In 2012 he rejoined the Australian National University part-time as a Professor in the Arndt-Corden Department of Economics of ANU's Crawford School of Public Policy, and since April 2018 he has been an Honorary Professor there.

    He has spent periods of leave at Korea's International Economics Institute (1979), Korea's Rural Economics Institute (1980-81 as Ford Foundation Visiting Fellow in International Economics), the Australian Department of Trade (1983), Stockholm University's Institute for International Economic Studies (1988), the GATT (now WTO) Secretariat in Geneva (1990-92), and the Research Group of the World Bank in Washington DC (2004-07).

    Outside ÐÂÀË²ÊÆ± he has taught as a guest professor at the Australian Defence College, Australian National University, Peking University, the University of Siena, the University of Sydney, Uppsala University, the World Trade Institute at the Swiss universities of Bern, Fribourg and Neuchatel (Master of International Law and Economics), and Georgetown University's Law School (JD and LLM programs in international economic law). He has conducted many short courses on agricultural, food and wine economics and trade policy issues, and on WTO matters in numerous developing countries.

    He has been a consultant to numerous national and international bureaucracies, business organisations and corporations.

    He is a Research Fellow of Europe's London-based Centre for Economic Policy Research, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, a Fellow of the (American) Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, a Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Society of Australia, a Distinguished Fellow (and former President) of the Australasian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, a Fellow (and Vice-President) of the American Association of Wine Economists, and he became a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors in 2003. In 2018 he was awarded Honorary Life Membership of the International Association of Agricultural Economists. He is on the editorial board of several international academic journals, including, as Co-editor, the Journal of Wine Economics (see ).

    He served on several dispute settlement and arbitration panels at the World Trade Organization (1996-2009, the first economist to do so), and on a panel advising the Ministers for Foreign Affairs and Trade in their preparation of Australia's first White Paper on Foreign and Trade Policy (1997). During 2018-19 he undertook an Independent Review (available in Files, below) for the South Australian Government of its moratorium on genetically modified crop production (following which the Government removed it except for Kangaroo Island).

    Corporate Board positions include as a Non-executive Director of Australia's Grape and Wine R&D Corporation (2000-05), as a Trustee of ÐÂÀË²ÊÆ±'s Institute for International Trade (since 2003), as a Trustee (from 2010), Vice-Chair (2013-14) and Chair (2015-17) of the Washington DC-based International Food Policy Research Institute, as a Commissioner on the Commission of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR, 2011-14), as President of ACIAR's international Policy Advisory Council (2014-20) and as Vice-Chair (2020) and Chair (from Nov. 2021) of the Governing Council of the Nairobi-based International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE).

    He was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Economics by the University of ÐÂÀË²ÊÆ± in 2014 and a Distinguished Alumni Award by the University of New England in 2016.

    In 2015 he was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC).

    Further details are in his CV in Files, below.

  • Qualifications

    Stanford University: Completed M.A. 1976, Ph.D. 1977

    University of Chicago: Completed 1st year of doctoral program. M.A. 1975

    University of ÐÂÀË²ÊÆ±: Completed external thesis-only M.Ec. 1974; Doctor of Economics (honoris causa), 2014 

    University of New England: Completed B.Ag.Ec. with first class honours and dux of 1970 class (conferred 04/1971)

  • Teaching Interests

    His teaching interests include microeconomics, international trade, agricultural economics and development economics at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He was instrumental in developing ÐÂÀË²ÊÆ±'s Graduate Certificate, Graduate Diploma and Masters degree in International Economics.

  • Research Interests

    His research interests and publications are in the areas of international trade and development economics, and the economics of agriculture, food and wine. His most recent projects have focused on empirical analysis of such issues as the Doha Development Agenda of the World Trade Organization ( global distortio