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...

Theoretical studies suggest that corruption may counteract government failure and promote economic growth in the short run, given exogenously determined sub optimal bureaucratic rules and regulations. As the government failure is itself a function of corruption, however, corruption should have...

The paper explains the large differences in cross-country productivity performance by modeling and testing the effects of social barriers to communication on productivity and capital accumulation. In an optimal growth model, social barriers to communication that impede the formation of knowledge...

The paper analyses the economic payoffs from marine reserves using a stochastic optimal control model. The results show that even if the reserve and harvested populations face the same negative shocks, harvesting is optimal, the population is persistent and with no uncertainty over current stock...

Using data from what was once one of the world’s largest capture fisheries the economic value of a marine reserve is calculated using a stochastic optimal control model with a jump diffusion process. The results show that with a stochastic environment an optimal-sized marine reserve can...

The paper provides the first ex-post estimates of the effects on technical efficiency of input controls in a fishery. Using individual vessel data from the northern prawn fishery of Australia for the years 1990–1996 and 1994–2000, a stochastic production frontier is estimated to analyse the...

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...

Communal land ownership is frequently considered a constraint on farm productivity as farmers endeavour to balance socio-cultural obligations with the demands of commercial agriculture. Recently, the Fiji Government has encouraged indigenous Fijians to take up profitable sugarcane growing using...

We examine the problem faced by a company that wishes to purchase patents in the hands of two di¤erent patent owners. Complementarity of these patents in the production process of the company is a prime e¢ciency reason for them being owned (or licenced) by the company. We show that this very...

The paper presents the first ex-post analysis of profit and productivity of individual vessels following a vessel or licence buyback in a fishery. Using individual firm-level data for the period 1997-2000, the paper analyzes a “natural experiment" of the effects of a 1997 scheme to reduce...