Trevor Swan (1918–1989) is an economist hero of mine. Even today's macroeconomists rely on the Solow-Swan model of 1956 to organize their thoughts on long-run economic growth. (I have never understood why Robert Solow alone was awarded the economics Nobel in 1987.) The Swan Diagram has been used by macroeconomists -- and still is, when exchange rates are not entirely flexible -- to deduce the combination of fiscal policy and exchange rate policy that is appropriate for given levels of the two big macroeconomic ailments, unemployment and inflation. Swan was also responsible for major innovations in the conduct of monetary policy as a member of the Australian Reserve Bank's monetary policy board.
For quite a while, I have been searching on the Internet for images of Trevor Swan to post on my web site on the history of economic thought, but in vain. It was easy to find photographs of virtually every economist worth listing, but there was nothing on Trevor Swan.
Recently, however, my luck has turned, thanks to Prof. Barbara Spencer of the University of British Columbia, who is Swan's daughter (as well as a great economist and one of the pioneers of strategic trade theory). I had read her paper "Trevor Swan and the Neoclassical Growth Model," co-authored with Robert Dimand, History of Political Economy, 2009, and I knew that she was Swan's daughter. I had hoped to find a photograph of Swan without having to bother her. But, when Google fell through, I finally wrote to Prof. Spencer. I am now delighted to report that she has provided me with what I had been looking for.
The black-and-white photograph of Trevor Swan above was "taken in 1950 at his office after Trevor was appointed the first Chair in Economics at the Research School of Social Sciences [at the Australian National University]. He was only 32 years old." The two color portraits of Swan below were "taken around 1983 - 1985 by the Australian Reserve Bank. Trevor was a member of the bank board responsible for setting monetary policy from 1975-85."
My great thanks to Professor Spencer.
