This edited volume is about the Australian difference and how Australia's economic and social policy has diverged from the approach of other countries. Australia seems to be following a 'special path' of its own that it laid down more than a century ago. Australia's distinctive bent is manifested in a tightly regulated labour market; a heavy reliance on means testing and income taxation; a geographical centralization of political power combined with its dispersal amongst autonomous authorities, and electoral singularities such as compulsory and preferential voting.

1: William O. Coleman: The Australian Exception
2: Geoffrey Blainey: Australian Exceptionalism: A Personal View
3: William O. Coleman: Theories of Australian Exceptionalism
4: Greg Melleuish and Stephen A. Chavura: Utilitarianism contra Sectarianism: The Official and the Unauthorised Civic Religion of Australia
5: Henry Ergas: Tocqueville, Hancock, and the Sense of History
6: J.R. Nethercote: Australia's 'Talent for Bureaucracy' and the Atrophy of Federalism
7: Phil Lewis: Australia's Industrial Relations Singularity
8: William O. Coleman: Australia's Electoral Idiosyncrasies
9: Jonthan Pincus: Socialism in Six Colonies: The Aftermath
10: Adam Creighton: We must all be capitalists now: The Strange Story of Compulsory Superannnuation in Australia
11: Richard Pomfret: Australia's Economic Mores through the Lens of the Professional Sports Industry: Individual Rights or State Paternalism?
12: Peter Yule: The Industrialist, the Solicitor, and Mr Justice Higgins: Some Biographical Insights into the Harvester Case of 1907
13: Nick Cater: Barons versus Bureaucrats: the History of the Grain Trade in North America and Australia
14: J.R. Nethercote: Australia's Distinctive Governance: Westminster, Ottawa, and Canberra Differentiated
15: Keith Rankin: Australia and New Zealand: Parallel and Divergent Paths

Edited by William Coleman , Reader in Economics, Australian National University

William O. Coleman is a Reader in the School of Economics at The Australian National University. He has written extensively on monetary policy, political economy, and the contested position of economics in society.