Listener 18 November, 1978.

Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;

Bill Phillips was born near Dannevirke, 64 years ago this week. The beginnings of New Zealand’s most distinguished economic theorist were academically inauspicious, if picaresque, He left school at 15, became an apprentice engineer for the Public Works Department. and in the following 14 years had a variety of jobs (including crocodile hunting) in New Zealand, Australia and Britain, where he qualified as an engineer.