Colonial enterprise

Authors

Simon Ville, University of WollongongFollow

RIS ID

101117

Publication Details

Ville, S. (2015). Colonial enterprise. In S. Ville & G. Withers (Eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of Australia (pp. 202-221). Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.

Abstract

We have observed in other chapters the rapid economic growth and sectoral shifts in activity that characterised 19th-century Australia (Madsen, this volume). Enterprise made an important contribution to this story; particularly by responding to extreme economic uncertainty in the early period, meeting the opportunities presented by expansion in the middle years of the century and adjusting to the cyclical vicissitudes of the latter years prior to Federation. At the same time, business enterprise played an increasingly important role in shaping that environment and the economic evolution of the Australian colonies.