Sumner La Croix is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Economics at the University of Hawai‘i-Mānoa and is a Senior Research Fellow with the University of Hawai‘i Economic Research Organization. He has held visiting positions at University of New South Wales, University of Canterbury, Fudan University, Columbia University, University of California-Berkeley, Johns Hopkins University-Bologna, and the London School of Economics and Political Science. La Croix’s articles have appeared recently in leading economics and policy journals, including Research Policy, Journal of Economic History, Economic History Review, Handbook of Cliometrics, Transport Policy, Journal of Environmental Economics and Policy, Climate Policy, and International Economic Review. Sumner is an associate editor of Australian Economic History Review. La Croix’s book on Hawai‘i's economic history, Hawai‘i: Eight Hundred Years of Political and Economic Change, was published by the University of Chicago Press in March 2019. In May 2016, the Cliometric Society presented its Clio Can Award to La Croix for exceptional service to the field of cliometrics, i.e., the application of economic theory and econometrics to the study of history.
Sumner is currently working with Edwyna Harris (Monash University, Melbourne, Australia) on a new economic history of colonial South Australia, from its founding in 1836 to its transition to responsible government in 1857. A working title for the book is Without Original Sin: An Economic History of Colonial South Australia, 1829-1857. Our recent articles on South Australia's economic history have appeared in Economic Record, Labor History, and Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization.