The Joseph Fisher Lecturers to date have been a mixture of prominent economists in academia and government, senior politicians including three Prime Ministers, and influential Australian bankers and businessmen. Most shared Joseph Fisher's interests in liberal markets and small, non-interventionist government. Only one female has given a Fisher Lecture so far, a reflection of the male dominance until recently of the world of economics and business. More than a dozen of the past Lecturers appear in Who's Who in Economics (edited by Mark Blaug and published by Edward Elgar), thirteen were knighted, and two have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics. Brief biographies of each of them follow. They are listed in alphabetical order, with the Fisher Lecture number and date given after their name.

Arndt, Heinz W., 1915-2002 (FASSA) (No. 31, 1964): Economist. After moving from Germany to Oxford with his parents in 1933, Arndt studied politics and sociology there and took up economics only after taking an appointment at Chatham House and then the University of Manchester under John Hicks. The University of Sydney attracted him to Australia in 1946, and by 1950 he moved to the new Chair of Economics at Canberra University College (later ANU), where he is still affiliated as an Emeritus Professor and continues to write and edit journals profusely. Arndt has done more than anyone to link Australian and Southeast Asian (especially Indonesian) development economists.