About Us

• Vision
• Mission
• Focus
• History

Vision

The Melbourne Institute aims to be a major institute of applied economic and social research that is nationally and internationally renowned in academia, government, business and community groups, and which:

• promotes a deeper understanding and discussion of economic and social issues of national significance;
• fosters effective responses to these issues through research that identifies alternative policy responses and quantifies their likely effects; and
• combines rigorous economic and social analysis with a genuine attachment to the Australian community's concern for the less well off.

Accordingly our vision is to be 'hard-headed but soft-hearted'.

Mission

In seeking to achieve this vision the Melbourne Institute's central mission is:

• to undertake
  • world-class independent and impartial applied economic and social research and policy analysis, on major issues relevant to Australia;
  • highly valued products and services for business, government and community groups; and
  • research training for emerging economic and social researchers.
• to use our research to foster informed discussion and debate amongst academics, policy makers, business and community groups, through publications, conferences, forums and the media.

In pursuing this mission, the Melbourne Institute will also undertake internationally collaborative research and will seek to develop intellectual property that may be transferred to other parts of the world.

Focus

Our current focus is on:

• applied macroeconomic research;
• labour economics and social policy; and
• applied microeconomic research.

Possible new research areas are explored from time to time.

While our core discipline is, and will remain, economics, we plan to engage with other disciplines including sociology, statistics, management, accounting, finance, demography and others.

History

The Melbourne Institute was formed in 1962 under the leadership of Professor Ronald Henderson. It was the first Economics research institute in an Australian university. Henderson built up an organisation with about 40 staff by the early 1970s. It engaged in a wide range of research areas including macroeconomic forecasting, financial economics and social economics, and is best remembered for its work on poverty and the development of the Henderson Poverty Line.

After the Henderson era, Peter Dixon was appointed Director and after some restructuring, the new Melbourne Institute based its operation around Dixon's ORANI model of the Australian economy. In the early 1990s Peter Dixon and a number of his senior colleagues left the institute to join Monash University. This necessitated a second period of adjustment and restructuring initiated by Professor Richard Blandy who was Director from 1992 to 1994.

Professor Peter Dawkins, took up his position of Director in January 1996 until April 2005. In 1996, the Director and his senior management team, in association with the staff and the advisory board, developed a strategic plan with the unifying theme being the link between economic performance and social outcomes. The first version of this plan was for the period 1996-2000 and it is updated annually.

From April 2005 until April 2007 the Director was Professor John Freebairn.

The current Director, Professor Stephen Sedgwick, commenced on 1 August 2007.