The growth of Pacific Island economies in the late twentieth century

Available from Bibliothek des Instituts fuer Weltwirtschaft, ZBW, Duesternbrook Weg 120, D-24105 Kiel A 205251 / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman

Capitalism and colonial development : studies in the economic history of Fiji, 1874-1939

The thesis examines the spread, functioning and impact of capitalism in Fiji during the first sixty-five years of British colonial rule, 1874-1939. At the outset, two distinguishing features of the Fiji experience are emphasised. First, rapid sugar export growth occurred in 1880-1913, when most sugar colonies were stagnating. Second, nineteenth century colonial governors sought a pattern of development which simultaneously ensured financial self-sufficiency for the colonial administration and a minimal disintegrative effect on indigenous society. Colonial economic policy accordingly encouraged a gentle growth in supplementary cash-cropping by Fijians and a faster growth in plantation production based on imported Indian labour and transnational - largely Australian - capital. (Chapter 1). A quantitative analysis of growth and instability of exports serves as a capsular history of Fiji's growth and then depression in the period 1875 to 1939. Expansion of the regional sugar economy was founded on exploitation of indentured Indian labour, and on technological innovation by the dominant company, CSR; and survival on transition to a peasant mode of production and export sales in a sheltered market. The regional copra economy grew more slowly and white planters especially suffered the full effects of external price fluctuation. (Chapter 2). Contrary to some opinion, Fijians were not isolated from the development process. They became increasingly, though still marginally, involved in monetary activity, and generally in a way which was compatible with maintenance of a distinctively Fijian domain. (Chapter 3). In contrast, hopes for a permanent European sugar planter society were lost in the vulnerability that complete specialisation, Indian peasant competition, and CSR indifference brought. (Chapter 4). Foreign corporate capital developed, and held an effective, profitable monopoly over, Fiji's shipping services; and like CSR, the shipping companies were naturally metropole-oriented and unprepared to encourage white settler development in Fiji at the expense of profits. (Chapter 5). Merchant capital became concentrated to the point where a few foreign-owned companies marketed and wholesaled the bulk of the colony's export and import goods. These companies did not exercise the market control or achieve the high profits attributed to them by some observers because they had to adjust to world prices and the presence of competitive Indian and Chinese firms. (Chapter 6). Two Australasian banks constituted Fiji's banking system; and their attempt to formulate exchange rate policy during the Great Depression serves to illustrate the strategic strength of CSR, merchants and government, and the political impotence of white copra planters. (Chapter 7). Finally the impact of colonial export growth, particularly on long-term economic development prospects, is empirically analysed. The findings are related to the popular general proposition that the development of rich countries causes the underdevelopment or impoverishment of poor countries. It is concluded that the proposition is simplistic and founded on fanciful counterfactuals; and that in the case of Fiji there was capitalist "development of development". By its nature, the latter was constrained, unhappy, and unequal; but it was the least unhappy of plausible alternatives open at the beginning of the colonial period

Fiji's economic history, 1874-1939 : studies of capitalist colonial development

This book examines the spread, functioning and impact of capitalism in Fiji during the first sixty-five years of British colonial rule, 1874-1939 - the period during which the present basic structure of Fiji's economy was formed

Recreation user fees: an Australian empirical investigation

It is widely acknowledged that increasing tourism and recreation usage of natural resources in Australia has placed heavy demands on those responsible for visitor management. The consequent need for more revenue has led local government and national park management to contemplate extended implementation of the 'user pays' principle. However, user pays may be rejected on the grounds that it is not a first-best pricing policy, and/or on the grounds that public resources funded out of the public purse should be freely available. It has been suggested in the case of entry fees to national parks that hey penalise the poor. This paper use empirical estimates of demand curves for two World-Heritage listed national parks - Kakadu and Hinchinbrook Island - to investigate the impact of entry fees on visitation and revenue, and the efficiency of fees as a revenue-raising device. An examination of visitors' socio-economic characteristics allows some comment on the equity issue. It is concluded that modest entry fees would have little impact on visitor numbers; that, provided the administrative costs of fee imposition are not prohibitive, entry fees are not only a good potential source of revenue, but also impose smaller efficiency costs than the income taxation system; and that fees may well constitute a progressive tax

The Australian economy in the twentieth century

Available from Bibliothek des Instituts fuer Weltwirtschaft, ZBW, D-21400 Kiel A 213573 / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman

Tourism and gold in Kakadu

This monograph is a revised version of two reports presented in late 1990 to the Commonwealth Government’s Resource Assessment Commission Inquiry into the Kakadu Conservation Zone, and includes a literature review undertaken by the authors for the same inquiry (Knapman et al 1990; Stanley & Knapman 1990). Kakadu National Park is recognised nationally and internationally as a place possessing outstanding natural and cultural values. Largely because of this, it is one of Australia's major tourist magnets. Rapidly increasing numbers of visitors from overseas, interstate and within the Northern Territory (NT) have come to the Park since the declaration of Stage 1 in 1979. From an economics perspective, it provides onsite services to these people, while simultaneously providing offsite benefits to non-visitors who gain satisfaction from knowing that the environmental and cultural resources of the Park are protected. The latter group may exhibit willingness to pay for the right to use Kakadu at a later date (so-called option value), or they may have no intention of visiting but be willing to pay just to know that Kak:adu is preserved (so-called existence value). The total economic value of the Park, then, consists of actual use value derived from visiting plus option value plus existence value (Pearce et a/1989). A cost-benefit analysis of the Park as a national environmental resource would seek to estimate these values. Additionally, use of Kakadu by visitors generates secondary or regional economic impacts. Expenditures by tourists and tourism-associated expenditure within the private and public sectors become gains to the regional suppliers of the relevant goods and services, so that another major aspect of the economic significance of the Park is its contribution to the economic development of the Northern Territory. It is this aspect which is addressed here. Chapter 2 presents quantitative estimates of the regional economic impact of Kakadu National Park generated by the use of newly acquired expenditure data and a model of the NT economy known as ORANI-NT. The chapter goes on to examine past, present and prospective tourism and recreation use of the 1986 Stage 3 extension of the Park, focusing on the regional economic impact of alternative development plans, and utilising qualitative data gained from interviews with operators in the tourist industry as well as other interested parties. An outline of the broader debate concerning tourism and recreation use in Kakadu is found in an up-to-date literature review in Appendix 1. Kakadu's natural resources also include non-renewable stocks of minerals. Uranium has been mined at Ranger since 1980; and there is an on-going controversy over, and a Commonwealth inquiry into, a proposal to mine gold, platinum and palladium at Coronation Hill in the so-called Conservation Zone, a 47.5 km2 area of Crown land within Stage 3 but presently excluded from the Park (RAC 1990). A cost-benefit analysis of the Coronation Hill project would be the standard means for establishing its worth from a national perspective: if every social benefit and social cost associated with the project were identified and appropriately evaluated, and if there were an excess of benefits over costs, then the project would make society as a whole better off in the sense that it would be possible to increase every individual's welfare. <...