Hart's informality occurs in market economies when people are unable or unwilling to conform with the guiding orthodoxy of the State. In Papua New Guinea (PNG) after the second world war an ideology of 'economic development' was adopted by the colonial State. Bureaucratic norms established to...

This paper is concerned with the accommodation to the market economy of Tolai people, indigenous to the Gazelle Peninsula in Papua New Guinea and regarded as one of the most prosperous and enterprising groups in the country. 'The market' was introduced to Tolai by German (and later, Australian)...

Set in Goroka in the highlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG) where coffee became the staple export crop after the Second World War, this paper explores how a variant of Keith Hart's informal economy emerged among indigenous Gorokans. Colonial administration was established in the region -- quickly...

This paper is concerned with the economic history of immigrant Chinese in colonial Rabaul and its hinterland (in German, later Australian, New Guinea) over almost a century to the Independence of Papua New Guinea in 1975. It is a companion piece to another study concerned with how Tolai people...

Hart's informality was an elusive thread in the fabric of Port Moresby, capital and principal urban centre of Papua New Guinea (PNG) during the late colonial period, 1945-75. Commencing in the late period of preparation for Independence, a genuine PNG voice emerged in the colonial legislature...