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...

The impact of trade liberalization on productivity growth is still an empirical issue; the theoretical literature is as yet unclear on the direction of any such association. This paper develops an analytical framework and employs it to empirically test whether trade liberalization in Indian...

The bulk of official development assistance (ODA) from Australia is provided to Asia and Oceania. Indonesia and Papua New Guinea together account for nearly a quarter of the total. Physical proximity to Canberra and large receipts of bilateral aid from the United States is a significant...

Papua New Guinea has pinned its hopes for economic development on its mineral wealth but, so far, this has been a false promise. Given Papua New Guinea’s vulnerability, this raises questions of a Dutch Disease effect. Dutch Disease is dismissed in principle, but an appreciating real exchange...

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...

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

The overriding objective of the present work is to design and analyse the supply chain of a section of an existing electronics industry which is involved in the manufacturing of instruments to be used in communication and is presently unable to compete in the open market. The suppliers,...

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

The overriding objective of the present work is to design and analyse the supply chain of a section of an existing electronics industry which is involved in the manufacturing of instruments to be used in communication and is presently unable to compete in the open market. The suppliers,...