Mingge-Money: Economic Change in the New Guinea Highlands

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Abstract
Like other groups of the New Guinea Highlands, the Chimbu are moving from a subsistence-exchange economy to one in which selected crops are raised for cash and money is used for a variety of purposes. Changes in the Chimbu economy, and particularly the changing uses of money, are described. The application of development theory is considered in the concluding portion of this paper. The transition to a money economy in Chimbu is not one-directional, but fluctuates, reverses and changes form. It is affected by personal and local circumstances and also by physical, technological and international economic and political factors over which the New Guineans have no control and little comprehension. Although money has penetrated to subsistence use, the economy has not been transformed; subsistence production and exchange continue in modern conditions.

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