I have chosen The Search for Stability as the title of my lectures, because I want to deal specifically with macroeconomics, the question of how we can keep the economy on a reasonably stable growth path. While there are disagreements about many aspects of economics, such as those dealing with efficiency, income distribution, or the role of the market versus the role of the state, I think there is widespread agreement across the political spectrum that stability is a good thing. Economically, the first half of the 20th century was disfigured by the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the second half by the high inflation of the 1970s. No one wants a repeat of these episodes, nor of some of the other disruptions that have marked the past 60 years. To some, the word "stability" sounds unexciting, and probably more so if I use the term "economic stability." But stability is not just an economic concept; it has a profound impact on the lives of people. Instability can create havoc, damage institutions, and leave a legacy from which some families and nations will take many years to recover. For example, the rise of Nazism in Germany was helped by the preceding Weimar hyper-inflation. Fortunately, in Australia, we've had nothing like that, but the effects of the Depression left scars that lasted for lifetimes. Likewise, the effects of the big rise in unemployment and inflation in the 1970s have not fully passed out of our economy.