Arndt gained two degrees at Oxford and taught at the London School of Economics and University of Manchester before settling in Australia in 1946.
[2] He became head of the department at the Research School of Pacific (and Asian) Studies at the Australian National University (ANU) in 1963.
One of his main activities as head of the department was the establishment and management of the Indonesia Project which sponsors research on the Indonesian economy.
[3] As part of his activities with the Indonesia Project he established the academic journal Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies (BIES).
In 1979 he was appointed as chair of group of experts to prepare a study for the Commonwealth on factors restraining global economic growth at the beginning of the 1980s.