Andrew Leigh

Andrew Leigh is an Australian politician, economist and author, a professor of economics turned Labor member of parliament, and one of the leaders of Australian progressive thought. His books — including The Shortest History of Economics and The Shortest History of Innovation, together with studies of inequality and of the frontier of new plant breeding — make economics urgent and clear.

Leigh's earlier academic work with the Australian National University focused on inequality, race and networks. As a prize-winning federal MP and shadow minister, he has remained unusually productive as a writer, combining evidence-based optimism for the "long-run betterment of people" with accessible prose about the forces shaping our economy.