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Background
Robert holds a PhD in Economics from the ANU, and his PhD research was in index number theory and global comparisons of income. Before being appointed as a Research Fellow in the Research School of Social Sciences in 2001, Robert gained extensive experience in applied economic and statistical analysis in government and non-government sectors. From 1991-1993, he worked as a senior researcher in the Bureau of Immigration Research (Commonwealth Department of Immigration) and he has completed over 15 long- and short-term consultancies for the World Bank (based in Washington DC, 1995-1997) in the areas of poverty analysis, household survey methodology, targeting and capacity building. Robert has worked on several AusAID and Asian Development Bank consultancies and from 2001-2003 he was an adviser to the AusAID-funded Social Protection Facility, organising and delivering several capacity building projects in South-East Asia.
Research
Robert’s recent research into cross-country comparisons of income is forthcoming in the Review of Economics and Statistics, and he is also conducting research into index numbers and global poverty measurement.
In 2002, Robert moved into a new area of research at the intersection of empirical social science and computer science. Under two Australian Research Council grants, Robert has developed approaches for quantitative analysis of social, political and economic phenomena on the World Wide Web that involve information retrieval, data visualisation and social network analysis. These new methods have been used to analyse political party networking on the web, the abortion debate online, the availability of online information for potential migrants to Australia, and environmental activist networks.
Robert is taking a leading role in establishing e-Research in the social sciences (or e-Social Science) in Australia. In 2005, an ARC Special Research Initiative (e-Research Support) grant led to the establishment of the Virtual Observatory for the Study of Online Networks project, which is conducting empirical social science research into online networks and developing e-Research tools to facilitate this research. Robert co-organised the First Australian e-Social Science Symposium, held at the ANU in 2004, and in 2007 he was awarded a UK National Centre for e-Social Science (NCeSS) Visiting Fellowship and a University of Oxford James Martin Visiting Fellowship, enabling him to spend six months as a Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute.
Selected Working Papers
Ackland, R. and M. O'Neil (2007), "Nanotechnology and Online Environmental
Activism," under review. download
PDF (544K)
Ackland, R. (2006), "Incorporating Minimum Subsistence Consumption
into International Comparisons of Real Income," forthcoming Review
of Economics and Statistics (accepted April 2007). download
PDF(243K)
Ackland, R., Dowrick, S. and B. Freyens (2006), "Measuring Global
Poverty: Why PPP Methods Matter," revise and resubmit Economic
Journal. download
PDF(290K)
Ackland, R. and R. Gibson (2006), "Hyperlinks and horizontal political
communication on the WWW: The untold story of parties online," revise
and resubmit Political Communication. Download
PDF (647K)
Ackland, R., O'Neil M., Standish, R. and M. Buchhorn (2006), "VOSON:
A Web Services Approach for Facilitating Research into Online Networks,"
paper presented at the Second International Conference on e-Social Science,
28-30 June 2006, University of Manchester. Download
PDF (628KB)
Ackland, R. (2006), "Towards a Model of the Link Economy,"
revised version of paper presented to Econophysics Colloquium, 14-18 November
2005, Canberra. Download
PDF (148K)
Ackland, R. (2005), "Estimating the Size of Political Web Graphs,"
revised version of paper presented to ISA Research Committee on Logic
and Methodology (RC33) Conference, 17-20 May 2004, Amsterdam. Revise and
resubmit Journal of the American Society for Information Science and
Technology. Download
PDF (156K)
Ackland, R. (2005), "Virtual Observatory for the Study of Online
Networks (VOSON) - Progress and Plans," paper presented at the First
International Conference on e-Social Science, 22-24 June 2005, University
of Manchester. Download
PDF (199KB)
Ackland, R. (2005), "Mapping the U.S. Political Blogosphere: Are
Conservative Bloggers More Prominent?," paper presented to BlogTalk
Downunder 2005, 19-22 May, Sydney. Download
PDF (482K)
Selected Publications
Ackland, R. and E. Gray (2005), "What Can Potential Migrants Find
Out About Australia from the WWW?," published in People and Place,
vol. 13, no. 4, 2005, pp. 12-22. Download
PDF (399K)
Datt, G., Filmer, D., Parajuli, D., Hwang, V., Cumpa, M., Ackland, R.
and T. Walker (2004), Papua New Guinea: Public Expenditure and Service
Delivery, The World Bank, 30th June 2004.
Ackland, R. (2000), "Poverty in the Republic of Latvia in 1997/98,"
Chapter 2, The Republic of Latvia Poverty Assessment (Volume 2) (Report
No. 20707-LV), The World Bank, Washington DC.
Banjeri, A., Braithwaite, J, Ackland, R., Peleah, M., Lindauer, D., Dudwick,
N., de Soto, H. and E. Nikulina (1999), Moldova Poverty Assessment, World
Bank Country Study, The World Bank, Washington DC.
Ackland, R. and J. Falkingham (1997), "Economic Transition and the
Profile of Poverty in Kyrgyzstan," in J. Falkingham et al. (ed.),
Household Welfare in Central Asia, London: Macmillan Press.
Ackland, R. (1994), "The Impact of Industry Restructuring from 1971
to 1991 on the Employment Experience of Demographic Groups," Australian
Economic Review, 2nd Quarter, pp. 57-68.
Ackland, R. and I. Harper (1992), "Financial Deregulation in Australia:
Boon or Bane," in P.J. Forsyth (ed.), Microeconomic Reform in Australia,
Allen & Unwin Australia.
Ackland, R. and L. Williams (1992), Immigrants and the Australian Labour
Market: The Experience of Three Recessions, AGPS, Canberra.
Ackland, R. (1991), Immigration as a Short-run Macroeconomic Policy Instrument
- results from the Access Economics Murphy Model, Australian Government
Printing Service, Canberra.
Ackland, R. (1991), "Inflation and the Impact of Budgets,"
Australian Economic Review, 3rd Quarter, pp. 28-37.
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