Economic Hardware

In 1949, New Zealand engineer and economist Professor William “Bill” Phillips astonished the London School of Economics revealing his “do-it-yourself” creation: an analogue computer model of the workings of the British economy. The Monetary National Income Automatic Computer or MONIAC prototype was an odd assortment of tanks, pipes, sluices and valves, with water pumped around the machine by a motor cannibalised from the windscreen wiper of a Lancaster bomber. Visiting fellow at the National Institute for Economic and Social Research Professor Brian Henry says the machine is far more than a museum piece. “Phillips was a brilliant guy. He came up with interesting ways of providing practical advice on policy.” Phillips was born to Albanian immigrants on a farm in New Zealand in 1914. He died in Auckland, in 1975.