The many small sovereign states and multiple shades of sovereignty that exist across the present-day Pacific Island region are largely the product of the region's colonial history. Yet, the story of regionalism among the Pacific Islands began in pre-colonial times. This history, in turn, has...

This paper uses quarterly data from September 1981 to December 2000 to quantify the extent to which the Australian real exchange rate is misaligned relative to its long-run equilibrium value. Our modelling suggest, that as of December 2000, the real exchange rate was seven percent below its...

Does the emigration of highly-skilled workers deplete local human capital? The answer is not obvious if migration prospects induce human capital formation. We analyze a unique natural quasi-experiment in the Republic of the Fiji Islands, where political shocks have provoked one of the largest...

Does land tenure form affect farm level productivity? The answer, from farm level data for oil palm from the Hoskins project in West New Britain province of Papua New Guinea, is in the affirmative. Analysis of farm level output, controlling for all measured inputs, shows systematic differences...

This paper makes three principal claims with respect to the economic performance of 14 Forum Island Countries (FICs) over the decade to 2005. First, the FICs (as a group) have performed below their potential. Second, it is the poor policy-choices rather than the handicaps of smallness and...

This paper presents a simple model that is able to account for three stylised facts about international trade. First, splicing of value-adding promotes trade in the abundant factor of an economy. Second, trade in intermediate inputs rises as costs of such trade fall but that free trade is not...

If capital for corporate finance was available from a common global pool and at zero transaction cost, then does after-tax arbitrage require harmonisation of income tax rates across jurisdictions? This paper shows that the answer is in the negative. When a corporation has the choice in deciding...