This paper provides an overview of issues relating to aid effectiveness. It argues that it is impossible to give a definitive answer to the question of whether aid is effective, and that it is more useful to ask what can be done to make aid more effective. The paper then groups the various...

An important public policy question is whether improved targeting of public spending will necessarily result in more or more cost-effective poverty reduction. In an important and influential study, Ravallion (2009) shows that targeting measures perform poorly as indicators of the poverty impact...

Recently, the direct distribution of natural resource wealth through cash transfers (“resources-to-cash”) has been recommended to help avoid the resource curse. Mongolia is perhaps the only developing country that has actually introduced a resources-to-cash scheme. While the scheme has...

This paper provides a survey of economic and related developments in Papua New Guinea (PNG) over the last twelve months, roughly from July 2014 to June 2015. The early commencement of the mega PNG LNG project notwithstanding, economic circumstances in PNG are currently difficult. Moody's has...

Evidence-based policy making has been advocated as much, if not more, for developing as developed countries. However, very little attention has been given to the conditions or prerequisites for evidence-based policy making, and whether these are in general more or less likely to hold in...

This 2017 PNG Economic Survey is written at the start of Prime Minister O'Neill's second full term, following the June/July 2017 national elections. How can the new government respond both to the current economic difficulties and to longer-term growth and revenue challenges? This Survey examines...

“Crowding out” is a widely accepted claim in migration analysis, evolving from the literature assessing post-Second World War guest-worker labour which helped fuel the economic boom in Europe and other Western countries. Given the costs of regulation, the preference of profit-maximising...

Developing countries invest in training skilled workers and can lose part of their investment if those workers emigrate. One response is for the destination countries to design ways to participate in financing skilled emigrants' training before they migrate — linking skill creation and skill...

The Australia Pacific Training Coalition (APTC) is a major Australian government foreign aid initiative that commenced in 2008, that has spent over $350 million, and that has turned out over 15,000 graduates with Australian qualifications. Analysis of graduate tracer surveys shows that...

PNG's public universities face difficulties in retaining academic staff, many of whom join government departments, statutory authorities, public enterprises, or the private sector for better paid jobs. We compare university pay in PNG with public service, statutory authority, and state-owned...