On-going debate of a Pacific Islands currency union has rekindled the argument on whether Pacific Island Countries (PICs) demonstrate symmetric behavior in their business cycles as a precondition for a union according to the OCA theory. Unfortunately for the PICs, there are no empirical studies...

Time series analyses generally rely on having a relatively high frequency of consistent and reliable data to work with. However for many of the South Pacific Island Nations (SPINS), data on major macroeconomic series, like GDP, are typically available only annually from the early 1980s. This...

This paper re-kindles the debate on the feasibility of a Pacific Islands currency union in view of the recent expansion and consolidation of regional strategies and agreements such as the ÔPacific PlanÕ and the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations Plus. These initiatives, including...

This paper investigates an appropriate choice of anchor currency for a proposed Melanesian currency union under various hypothetical currency union arrangements. Drawing from the optimal currency area (OCA) theory and related extensions, the analysis focuses on the effects of a currency union on...

On-going debate of a Pacific Islands currency union has rekindled the argument on whether Pacific Island Countries (PICs) demonstrate symmetric behavior in their business cycles as a precondition for a union according to the OCA theory. Unfortunately for the PICs, there are no empirical studies...

We provide an overview of the workings of the National Science Foundation and the proposal review process, as well as some guidance in writing proposals for funding.

In this paper we derive conditions under which optimal tax rates for addictive goods exceed tax rates for non-addictive consumption goods in an environment where exogenous government spending cannot be nanced with lump sum taxes. Standard static models that consider revenue raising and...

Between 1996 and 2003, a series of amendments were made to the Tax Reform Act of 1986 that gradually increased the tax credit for health insurance purchases by the self- employed from 25 to 100 percent. We study how these changes have in uenced the likelihood that a self-employed person has...