Economics professor shining star in health arena
STUBBORN endurance was a Cooper family trait, former Otago Area Health Board chairman Michael Cooper’s elder daughter said at her father’s funeral in July.
And while that trait probably helped Prof Cooper navigate — and survive — the drastic changes to New Zealand’s health system in the 1980s and 1990s, other characteristics such as determination, clarity of thought, communication skills, sense of humour and infectious enthusiasm would have played their part.
His work, leading the creation of the Otago Area Health Board from five fiercely independent hospital boards, was his ‘‘standout achievement on the health administration front’’, his wife, Joy, said.
And it contributed to him being honoured with an OBE in 1993.
Prof Cooper firmly believed in the area health board model which he helped design and worked hard to put into effect in Otago. But that model was effectively derailed as part of the National government’s 1990s health reforms which essentially dismantled elected boards overnight.
While it was a blow, Prof Cooper believed the new regional health authority could work better, as it included primary healthcare, and he stayed on as a commissioner to see the board wound down.
As a firm advocate of publicly provided and publicfunded healthcare in a time of uncertainty, he decided to work within the increasingly marketdriven health system, to get the best results possible.
The man regarded as one of the fathers of health economics in this country and described by his family as ‘‘an exceptional individual who lived an exceptional life’’ died at his Martinborough home on July 15 after many years of ill health. He was 78.
Born in Lowestoft in Suffolk on December 15, 1938, Michael Hymie Cooper was the only child of Robert Kupferroth who went by the anglicised name of Cooper, a department store manager descended from a family of German and Dutch immigrants, and his English wife Rita (nee Symonds).
During the war, he and his mother were evacuated to the tiny Welsh village of Llangwnnadl. And those years as an evacuee left a lasting impact.
His father could visit only occasionally because he was working as an aircraft inspector.
All of young Michael’s early schooling was in Welsh and the move, at fourth form level, to a London school, where he was frequently punished for using Welsh words, was ‘‘a horrible adjustment’’ for the schoolboy.
But while still in Wales he had become a dedicated Arsenal fan and would sometimes get the train to London to visit his grandparents and attend Arsenal matches.
Moving to London after the war, the Coopers lived at Highbury with the grandparents and an aunt and uncle. His father had developed Tb, was unable to work and was not expected to live long, something which also had a deep impact on the teenager, although his father actually lived on until 1970.
Prof Cooper apparently ‘‘loathed with a real passion’’ his London school, Wembley Grammar, but seemed to have quite a good time there and made many lifelong friends.
He enjoyed music, and at school and elsewhere, appeared in several musical productions. He could ‘‘boom out a song with great gusto’’. But, much to his regret, he did not have the talent for a singing career.
He also loved acting and continued it in Dunedin where he appeared in several lunchtime plays at Allen Hall. But time constraints meant he generally had to remain ‘‘a frustrated thespian’’.
After completing his secondary education, Prof Cooper studied at the University of Leicester, graduating with a degree in Economics with Psychology in 1961. He spent two terms as a schoolmaster in Cardiff, proving himself ‘‘a natural’’, but was quickly lured back to academia, first as a research assistant at Keele for economist Dennis Lees, then as an assistant lecturer in economics at Keele. Through Lees he became involved in the
Institute of Economic Affairs which, in the 1960s, was an influential thinktank promoting freemarket ideas.
From his early academic career, Prof Cooper focused on social policy issues and, in 1965, published a study on work in prisons, spending three months working in a maximum security prison, talking to prisoners. It had quite an impact on him and he later told an interviewer he learned that ‘‘even the nastiest people are 90% just like everyone else’’.
Prof Cooper moved to Exeter as a reader in economics in 1964, and, two years later, wrote Prices and Profits in the Pharmaceutical Industry, the first of many significant books on health economics.
In 1968, he and close friend Tony Culyer coauthored The Price of Blood: An Economic
Study of the Charitable and Commercial Principle, controversially arguing the shortage of blood available for transfusions in the UK should be addressed by paying money to blood donors.
About the same time Prof Cooper, then 29, was appointed to a full faculty position at Stanford University. But he missed Exeter and returned in 1969.
It was there he met his future wife, Joy Gardner, an economics and chemistry graduate, who had applied for a job as a research assistant. They were married in December 1971. Daughter Jenny was born a year later, followed 20 months later by another daughter Jo.
Their youngest child, Robert, was born in Dunedin in 1980, four years after the family had moved there following Prof Cooper being offered a chair in economics ‘‘on the other side of the world’’.
He was appointed the Donald Reid professor of economics at the University of Otago, a position he retained for the next 19 years.
As well as family commitments and his work with the hospital and area health boards, Prof Cooper was also ‘‘massively involved’’ in both the university and the Dunedin community. He was both the University of Otago’s provicechancellor and assistant vicechancellor for several years, was an enthusiastic member of Rotary, chaired the board of Columba College, was on the committee of the Dunedin Club, chaired the Dunedin Showcase organising committee and was a member of the Artificial Limb Board.
And he remained a prolific researcher and writer in the field of health economics. His book Rationing Health Care was published in London in 1975. It was regarded as a classic text, as relevant now as when it was published four decades ago.
In its review, The Guardian newspaper called it ‘‘a book of exemplary clarity’’, a description which could be applied to many of the books and scholarly papers published by Prof Cooper during his career, former colleague Rob Bowie, of the Wellington School of Medicine, said.
‘‘Mike was a prolific researcher and writer and, somewhat unusually for an economist of his era, he was interested in the real world and the allimportant practical issues of what could be done to enhance people’s welfare.’’
Prof Cooper is remembered by former colleagues as someone who inspired and encouraged them and achieved ‘‘an enormous amount in his life as a teacher, economist and as a healthcare decisionmaker’’.
For Nancy Devlin, professor of health economics at London’s Office of Health Economics, his teaching of health economics was ‘‘a lifechanging experience’’.
Diane Owenga of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet recalled Prof Cooper as a groundbreaking health economist, who recognised economics was only valuable ‘‘if it made a difference in the lives of others — not just one’s own life’’.
Former student, now Associate Prof of economics at Otago, Paul Hansen described his former teacher and mentor as ‘‘a great man and a very nice man, kind, funny, generous, eloquent, elegant and clever’’.
Someone who ‘‘reached far beyond the Department of Economics providing input, insight and leadership’’, was how Emeritus Prof Ross Cullen, of Lincoln University, remembered him. And former colleague John Parker said Prof Cooper did something novel within the Economics Department.
‘‘He inspired students by making the subject enjoyable, exciting and relevant.’’
The Coopers left Dunedin for Wellington in 1995 when Prof Cooper was appointed principal of the Heretaunga Central Institute of Technology. He later held positions with the Ministry of Health and the independent practice association, Kowhai Health.
In 2000 the couple moved to Martinborough where they established a boutique olive oil business, Molive of Martinborough Ltd, which has won international recognition.
Prof Cooper is survived by wife Joy, daughters Jenny and Jo and son Robert.