Academy Fellow

Ann Harding was an Emeritus Professor at the Institute for Governance and Social Policy at the University of Canberra. Ann was the founder and inaugural Director of the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling (NATSEM) at the University. Ann founded the Centre in January 1993 and held the position of Director for 16 years, before stepping down in mid 2009 to take on a research-based role within NATSEM and the University of Canberra. In 2014 Ann was appointed an Emeritus Professor of the University of Canberra.

Ann's key research interest was in the development of highly sophisticated microsimulation models and databases, so that social and economic policy makers could gain much better information about the likely distributional impact of current and proposed policies. In later years Ann steered microsimulation modelling in Australia beyond its traditional 'tax and social security' focus to such new areas as health, aged care, housing and regional issues, with the goal of extending sophisticated quantitative decision-support tools to policy makers in these areas. This research was supported through ARC and NHMRC grants, as well as numerous government departments and private and public sector organisations. Ann has published widely on income inequality, poverty, and the distributional impact of government programs, and has been a prolific contributor to public policy in Australia.

Ann served as elected President of the International Microsimulation Association from 2004 to 2011; on an extensive range of government and academic boards and advisory committees (including the Ministerial Taskforce on Child Support); and was one of the 1000 Australians selected to attend the Prime Minister's 2020 Summit. Prior to establishing NATSEM, Ann worked on policy and research within the Parliamentary Research Service and the federal departments of Social Security, Treasury and Health, Housing and Community Services. Before entering the Australian Public Service, Ann was an investigative journalist within Fairfax newspapers.

In 2010 the University of Canberra named the Ann Harding Conference Centre (Building 24) in recognition of her contribution to the University.

See above under 'My Profile' for a recent listing.

In 2016 Ann was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the Australia Day Honours for “distinguished service to education in the field of applied economics and social policy analysis, as an academic, researcher and author, and to professional organisations”.

Over the course of her career, Ann won numerous scholarships and prizes, including a British Council Scholarship to undertake her PhD at the London School of Economics.

For both more recent and earlier publications search on the website at www.natsem.canberra.edu.au under 'Search for Publications', select 'author', and then 'Harding' and then click to sort by 'date'.

• Harding, A. and Gupta, A., 2007. (eds) Modelling Our Future: Population Ageing, Social Security and Taxation, International Symposia in Economic Theory and Econometrics, Vol. 15, Amsterdam, Elsevier B. V.
• Gupta, A and Harding, A, 2007, (eds.), Modelling Our Future: Population Ageing, Health and Aged Care, International Symposia in Economic Theory and Econometrics Volume 16, Elsevier B. V., Amsterdam.
• Zaidi, A, Harding A. and Williamson, P., 2009, (eds), New Frontiers in Microsimulation Modelling, Ashgate, London.
• Harding, A., Kelly, S., Percival, R. Keegan, M. 2009. ‘Population Ageing and Government Age Pension Outlays: Using Microsimulation Models to Inform Policy Making’, Prepared for the Economic and Social Research Institute, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan, March. (published at http://www.esri.go.jp/jp/workshop/0907/a_02_01.pdf.)
• Tanton, R. McNamara, J. Harding, A. and Morrison, T. 2009, ‘Rich suburbs, poor suburbs? Small area poverty estimates for Australia’s eastern seaboard in 2006’. In A Zaidi, A Harding and P Williamson, New Frontiers in Microsimulation Modelling, Ashgate, London
• Brown, L., Harris, A., Picton, M., Thurecht, L., Mandy, Y., Harding, A., Dixon, P. and Richardson, J., 2009, ‘Linking Microsimulation and Macro-Economic Models to Estimate the Economic Impact of Chronic Disease Prevention’, In A Zaidi, A Harding and P Williamson, New Frontiers in Microsimulation Modelling, Ashgate, London
• Tanton, R., Harding, A., and McNamara, J. 2010, ‘Urban and Rural Estimates of Poverty: Recent Advances in Spatial Microsimulation in Australia’, Geographical Research, Vol 48, No. 1, pp. 52-64
• Tanton, R., Harding, A., Daly, A., McNamara, J. and Yap, M., 2010, Australian children at risk of social exclusion: a spatial index for gauging relative disadvantage, Population, Space and Place, Vol. 16, No. 2., pp. 135-150
• Nepal, B., Tanton, R., Harding, A.,2010, Measuring housing stress: How much do definitions matter?, Urban Policy and Research, Vol 28, No 2, June, pp 211-224
• Harding, A., Keegan, M and Kelly, S., 2010, ‘Validating a Dynamic Microsimulation Model: Recent Experience in Australia’, International Journal of Microsimulation , Vol 3(2), Autumn., pp 46-64
• Harding A, Vidyattama Y, Tanton R, 2011, “Demographic Change and the Needs-Based Planning of Government Services: Projecting Small Area Populations Using Spatial Microsimulation” The Journal of Population Research, Vol. 28, No. 2-3., pp. 203-224
• Gong, H. C., McNamara, J., Vidyattama, Y., Miranti, R., Tanton, R., Harding, A., & Kendig, H., 2012. ‘Developing Spatial Microsimulation Estimates of Small Area Advantage and Disadvantage among Older Australians’, Population, Space and Place, Vol. 18, No. 5, pp. 551-565
• Rahman, A., Harding, A., Tanton, R. and Liu, S., 2012, Simulating the characteristics of populations at the small area level: new validation techniques for a spatial microsimulation model in Australia, Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Vol. 57, No. 1, pp. 149-165
• Clarke, G. and Harding, A., 2013, 'Background, Chapter Summaries and Future Research Directions', in R. Tanton and K Edwards, Spatial Microsimulation’, Microsimulation: A Reference Guide for Users, Springer
• Harding, A. and Tanton, R., 2013, ‘Policy and People at the Small Area Level: Using Microsimulation to Create Synthetic Spatial Data’, in R. Stimson, Handbook in Spatially Integrated Social Science Research Methods, Edward Elgar, Sydney