UNE Emeritus Professor of Economics, Brian Dollery, has celebrated a significant landmark in his research career: his 500th refereed journal article was accepted for publication in November 2021.
Professor Dollery arrived at UNE in February 1988 to teach Economics in the (then) Department of Economics and Economic History.
He credits a number of influential research collaborations over the course of his career with helping to drive his prodigious output.
“I started research in earnest at Rhodes University in Grahamstown South Africa in the late 1970s, working largely on applied microeconomic policy analysis, with the late Professor Phil Black as a superb research mentor."
“Shortly after I arrived in Australia in February 1988, I discovered that relatively little research effort had hitherto been focused on the economic analysis of Australian local government."
“I began working with various research collaborators on different aspects of local government and Anne Vince and I established the UNE Centre for Local Government in 1994."
Initially, his research concentrated on the theory of local public finance, resulting a series of books with co-author Dr Joe Wallis, a former colleague at Rhodes, who had moved to the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand.
“Joe and I sought to extend standard microeconomics to the analysis of local government and developed a theory of local leadership in our books, perhaps most notably in Market Failure, Government Failure and Leadership in Public Policy (MacMillan 1999) and The Political Economy of Local Government (Edward Elgar 2001)," he said.
“Thereafter my focus gradually shifted to the empirical analysis of Australian local government working with a series of highly productive research collaborators, including Andrew Worthington, Lin Crase, Joel Byrnes, Mike Kortt, Sue O’Keefe, Judy McNeill and Bligh Grant – all former PhD students of mine."
More recently, Prof. Dollery has worked on the impact of municipal mergers, shared services and other kinds of structural change with some "outstanding" research colleagues, especially Joseph Drew of the UTS, Carolyn Tran of UNE, Paulo Caldas and Rui Marques at the University of Lisbon, Hugo Silvestre of UNILAB in Brazil, Simone De Souza of Michigan State University and Lorenzo Robotti of the University of Delle Marche in Italy.
Over the past couple of years, he has also worked on local co-production between local councils and local volunteers with Japanese colleagues Keiichi Yamazaki of Yokohama National University and Yukio Kinoshita of Iwate University.
“UNE has provided an especially productive research environment in which to conduct research into local government, with excellent facilities and supportive colleagues," he says. And, he adds, his wife Therese "is not only a superb proof-reader, but also an excellent editor of English prose”.
In addition to his research and publishing, Brian has advised local councils, state local government associations and local government unions across Australia and New Zealand.
“It has been an absolute privilege to work with local councils across Australia, to see so many beautiful places and to meet so many wonderful people”, he said.
