DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

Exchange and Markets in Early Economic Development

Informal Economy in the Three New Guineas

John D Conroy author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Berghahn Books

Published:12th May '23

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Exchange and Markets in Early Economic Development cover

The idea of an informal economy emerged from, and is a critique of, the ideology of ‘economic development’. It originated from Keith Hart’s recognition of informal economic activity in 1960s Ghana. In the context of four colonialisms – German, British, Australian and Dutch – this book recounts Hart’s effort in 1972 to introduce the informal ‘sector’ into development planning in Papua New Guinea. This was problematic, because ‘the market’ was scarcely institutionalized, and traditional modes of exchange persisted stubbornly. Rather than conforming with post-colonial economic ideology, the subjected people pushed back against imposed bureaucracy to practice informal and hybrid modes of economic activity.

“It is a sound piece of scholarship, directed at an interesting question with important policy implications, which ranges over a broad field of largely historical data and relevant literature. It is well written and makes a significant contribution to the literature of Papua New Guinea and to that of comparative development economics.”• Ronald May, The Australian National University

ISBN: 9781800739680

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

312 pages