The economist who knows us all

Professor Roger Wilkins oversees the newly released Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research. Here he tells us what drives him and why HILDA is so important.

Growing up, I was always interested in how society works. I wanted to know how it all hung together and how the food ended up on my table. Economics is the discipline that is most interested in how society organises itself to give people what they need and want—and when and how it gets it wrong. So economics seemed a natural fit for me. Like many people, I want to utilise my skills to positively contribute to society. In my case that means helping to improve government policy by focusing on what the evidence tells us. A lot of my work is actually just getting the basic facts right.

I’m an applied economist, so my research is very much based on looking at what the data tells us. Some economists work on a purely theoretical level, but I’m somewhat sceptical of the utility of that. I believe theory should be driven...