Intimations of Keith Hart's 'Informal Economy' - In the Work of Henry Mayhew, P T Bauer and Richard Salisbury

John D. Conroy

Crawford School Research Papers from Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University

Abstract: 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 degree, anticipated the idea of informal economic activity and described it in a particular historical period and place. They are the mid-Victorian journalist Henry Mayhew (London, c.1850), the libertarian economist P. T. Bauer (British West Africa, c.1948) and the economic anthropologist R. F. Salisbury (colonial New Guinea, c.1952-1963). The principal texts relied upon are Mayhew's monumental London Labour and the London Poor (4 vols, 1851-61), Bauer's Economics of Under-Developed Countries (1957) and Salisbury's From Stone to Steel (1962) and Vunamami: Economic Transformation in a Traditional Society (1970).

Keywords: informal economy; informal sector; Keith Hart; Henry Mayhew; P. T. Bauer; Richard Salisbury (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B20 B25 B31 J40 J49 O10 O17 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2012-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-hme, nep-hpe and nep-iue
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:een:crwfrp:1205

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