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Bibliography Howes, S.; Davies, M.; Fox, R.; Laveil, M.; Pandey, M.K.; Samof, K.; Sum, D.J. (2025) Struggle, reform, boom and bust: an economic history of Papua New Guinea since independence, Pacific Series, 416 pages, ANU Press, Canberra ACT, URL: http://doi.org/10.22459/SRBB.2025
Abstract / Content summary Much has changed in Papua New Guinea (PNG) since its independence in 1975. The economy is about four times as big. Income per person has grown only very slowly, but the population is more than three times the size it was at independence. In its half century of independence, PNG has experienced both booms and busts. The seventies and eighties were a period of relative stability, the nineties a decade of crises. A major boom began in the early noughties (2000s) and lasted almost a decade. This was followed by a long bust. Three other booms—one in the early eighties, one in the early nineties and one in the mid-tens (2010s)—were anticipated, but either ended quickly or did not eventuate at all, illustrating just how difficult the challenges of economic management are in this resource-rich country. Commodity exports are now dominated not by coffee, copra, cocoa and copper as at independence but by gas and gold. Timber, palm oil and fish exports have also grown in importance. Domestic food and betel nut markets have expanded rapidly. People are much more connected, via the technological miracle of the mobile phone. The capital Port Moresby has been transformed and is now home to sprawling settlements and subject to traffic jams. Infrastructure and service delivery have worsened over large parts of the country, and some of the country’s social indicators are now among the worst in the world. PNG has enjoyed macroeconomic stability, except in the nineties. This decade of crises was also a decade of reform, in which the government deregulated, liberalised and redesigned some of its key institutions. [Part of Introduction]
File PacificSeries2025.pdf
File info 8.95 MB, PDF
External web link http://doi.org/10.22459/SRBB.2025
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