ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a summary of three published papers dealing with problems in the development of a primitive economy, with special reference to the Territory of Papua-New Guinea. The first of the papers is concerned with an analysis of factors that determine the economic activity of a unit in a subsistence economy in isolation from modernizing forces. In the second paper, the subsistence group is in contact with the advanced sector. The third paper takes the analysis a further step forward. The starting point is a stage where one or more of the resources initially available to a unit become fully employed. The chapter examines three ways in which further increases in production and income can be achieved—through technological change, through resource specialization and trade within the subsistence sector, and through additions to the resources available to a unit.
