It can be theoretically shown that imports of new foreign varieties--an increase in the extensive margin of imports--can be a possible channel for increased skill premium in wages. No past studies, however, have quantified how much of the increase in skill premium can be accounted for by the...

This paper investigates targeting of cyclone relief within the village in Fiji. We focus on two issues, the link of relief allocation with informal risk sharing and elite capture, both of which are directly related to kinship. We find the following. First, food aid is first targeted toward kin...

It has been argued in the economic literature that job search through informal job networks improves the employer-employee match quality. This paper argues that inventors' research collaboration networks reduce the uncertainty of firms about the match qualities of inventors prior to hiring. We...

This paper demonstrates that the Fijian kava ritual emerges as insurance against cyclone risk, as women's production of ritual handicraft gifts is linked with risk sharing. The cyclone tightens female-heads' constraints on intra-household male labor allocation in the gendered Fijian society....

In this paper, we provide an empirical analysis of evolving networks of successful R&D collaborations in the IT industry (consisting of firms that obtained patents in the technological category of computers and communication) in the U.S. between 1985 and 1995. We first show that the R&D network...

This paper examines the allocation of natural disaster reconstruction funds among cyclone victims in rural Fiji. During post-emergency periods, when good information about cyclone damage is available, do local elites, a powerful minority, capture housing construction materials? With effective...

To be the lowest bidder in procurement auctions, prime contractors commonly solicit subcontract bids at the bid preparation stage. A remarkable feature of the subcontract competition is that "winning is not everything"; the lowest subcontractor gets a job conditional on his prime contractor's...