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Business Profitability And Structural Change In Interwar Australia, Simon Ville, David Merrett

Simon Ville

The Australian economy of the interwar period experienced noteworthy cyclical and secular trends. Severe cyclical fluctuations were associated with the international depression, often referred to as the ‘Great Slump’, which particularly afflicted Australia’s large traded sector, especially its cornerstone primary exporting industries. In the midst of this apparent dearth, however, came the ‘plenty’ of the initial stages of modernisation, which resulted from the broadening of the country’s economic base into new manufacturing industries. The general trends of economic activity are captured by national income data, while the expansion of particular industries has been contextualised by several authors, most notably Forster …