This paper explores the UK’s proposed “Indo-Pacific tilt” from a development perspective. In light of recent cuts to the UK’s official development assistance (ODA), we ask how the UK can use scarce development resources in the Indo-Pacific more effectively to capitalise on opportunities to support s...

How many immigrants with less than university education, for a given immigration quota, maximise economic output? The answer is simple—zero—in the canonical model of the labour market, where the marginal product of a university-educated immigrant is always higher. We build an alternative model, foll...

The demand for skills exceeds supply, both within the Pacific Islands and the high-income countries of the Pacific Rim. Enhancing skilled migration therefore has the potential to generate large economic gains. The Global Skill Partnership is a migration model that can support such mutually beneficia...

In the Philippines, anecdotes on the dwindling use of essential healthcare services as an indirect consequence of COVID-19 pandemic are mounting, but compelling evidence remains scarce up to this day. In this study, we examined the magnitude of decline in insurance claims of twelve high burden ...

China is the world’s largest official creditor, but we lack basic facts about the terms and conditions of its lending. Very few contracts between Chinese lenders and their government borrowers have ever been published or studied. This paper is the first systematic analysis of the legal terms of Chin...

The rising budget deficits and associated increases in public debt confronting the government of Papua New Guinea (PNG) make it difficult for the government to comply with the legislated debt ceiling of 45 percent of GDP within the foreseeable future.