The performance of the Pacific Island countries (PICs) over the past two decades has been characterized by economic growth rates that are low on average yet extremely volatile. This has been so despite favorable levels of natural and human resources, high levels of public investment and aid, and...

Steve Pollard, known in the Pacific as a government employee, researcher, consultant, and donor staffer, recently retired from the ADB. He has almost 30 years' experience working toward the interests of better policy for better livelihoods in the Pacific, almost 40 years' experience in...

This paper considers the idea of informality in market exchange, as introduced into the economic development literature by Keith Hart in the 1970s. In addition to Hart (1971, 1973) it will discuss three writers who may be considered his intellectual forerunners. Each, to a greater or less...

Fiji is in the midst of a consultation process for a new Constitution on which General Elections are scheduled to be held in 2014. The new Constitution is going to be the fourth one for Fiji. During the first decade of independence, FijiÕs economy grew at a rate of more than 5% per annum....

This is an edited transcript of the lecture given by The Honorable Emilia Pires, Timor-Leste Finance Minister and g7+ Chair, for the inaugural Harold Mitchell Development Policy Lecture at the Australian National University on 22 November 2012. In her lecture and subsequent Q&A, Ms Pires...

Business is increasingly seen by international aid agencies as a partner in development. Recommendation 21 of the recent Independent Review of Aid Effectiveness for the Australian Government reflects this: ‘The power of business should be harnessed and business innovation should be encouraged,...

Fragile states are those characterised by problems of weak governance or of conflict, internal or cross border. They are also described, less crisply but more carefully, as countries in fragile and conflict affected situations – hence the acronym used in this paper, FCA countries. For about a...

The expression subsistence affluence is a catchphrase for certain perceptions of reality in Papua New Guinea, and after 50 years it still actively conditions opinions of the country (even though its population has trebled in the meantime). The paper examines antecedents of the concept in the...

This paper re-examines the sources of inequality in Vietnam, a transitional economy with large reductions in poverty from recent and dramatic economic growth, but vastly unequal gains across ethnic groups. Using an instrumental variable approach to provide consistent estimators of explanatory...

Does foreign aid contribute to economic growth? If so, is the impact of aid conditional on good policies? This is a controversial issue. While the World Bank (1998) contends that the aid is effective only if recipient governments have good policies, others refute this view and argue that aid...