ABSTRACT
Along with Chile, two other hard mineral economies also acquired reputations for effective management through the 1970s and 1980s. They are Botswana, which is examined by C.Harvey and Lewis (1990) and Papua New Guinea (PNG), which is analysed in this chapter. Like Chile, PNG gained a reputation for soundly orthodox macroeconomic policy, shrewd management of its mining sector and a minimalist industrial policy. Yet, although PNG avoided the very deep recessions which hit the Chilean economy in 1973, 1975 and 1982, its long-term growth was also disappointing. Measured in real terms, the per capita income of PNG in 1988 was no higher than in 1972. However, unlike Chile, PNG’s non-mining tradeables grew slowly and its manufacturing sector remained extremely weak.
