Longer papers on the informal economy by John Conroy

These are more formal papers and include discussions of the origins of the idea in Dickensian London and 1960s Ghana, its application in Papua New Guinea, and what a rural informal economy looks like. There is also a full-length discussion of the Melanesia/Monsoon Asia question.

Please contact John Conroy or FDC for further information or comments.

Click on the titles below to read the publications.

• A Guide to Subsistence Affluence
• Coffee, market economy and informality in late colonial Goroka, Papua New Guinea
• The Idea of a Rural Informal Economy
• The Chinese in Colonial Rabaul: An Informal History
• Preconditions for an informal economy: ‘trucking and bartering’ in New Guinea
• Intimations of Keith Hart’s ‘Informal Economy’
• Informality’s elusive thread: policy debates in late colonial Port Moresby
• Informality and ‘the Idea of the Town’ in Hubert Murray’s Papua
• The informal economy in Monsoon Asia and Melanesia: West New Guinea and the Malay world
• Colonial Origins of the Informal Economy on the Gazelle Peninsula