Information and communications technology, health, and gender equality: Empirical evidence from a panel of Pacific developing economies.

Information and communications technology (ICT) has been widely embraced in many developing economies in recent times. Extant research reveals that ICT increases economic growth. Beyond economic growth, improved access to information, markets and economic opportunities via information and communications technology have the potential to influence other dimensions of public welfare. This study quantitatively examines the effects of ICT on selected health and gender dimensions of Pacific Island developing countries' populations. The results show a statistically significant and positive impact of ICT on health and gender outcomes. Our results are robust with an alternative modeling approach, different control variables, and different measures of health and gender outcomes. We further establish that the health outcome of technology has a valid pass-through of income. The study suggests policy implications for the Pacific and other developing countries striving to enhance the health and gender outcomes of SGDs.

Determinants of Exports in a Small and Vulnerable Economy: Fiji Islands-A Disaggregated Analysis.

The previous studies of exports performance in Fiji were carried out at the aggregate level. We conduct a disaggregated analysis of exports of three major products, namely, sugar, tourism, and gold. This analysis is useful for developing sector-based export promotion policies. The long run as well as dynamic export demand functions are estimated at the aggregate and disaggregate levels. The results identify a number of factors such as trading partner income, relative prices, productivity shocks, natural disasters, political disturbances, and the exchange rate that affect the export demand for sugar, tourism, and gold, though not in the same way. For instance, tourism and sugar enjoy the highest income elasticity. Sugar export is adversely affected by natural calamities and political upheavals. The political upheavals also affect tourism adversely in Fiji. The exchange rate affects the export of sugar more than others. The idea that devaluation will promote exports in Fiji needs careful investigation because results show that this will happen with a high cost, i.e. 5% nominal devaluation will be required to increase real exports by 1%.

Les études précédentes sur la performance des exportations aux Fidji ont été réalisées au niveau global. Nous effectuons une analyse désagrégée des exportations de trois produits principaux, à savoir le sucre, le tourisme et l'or. Cette analyse est utile pour développer des politiques sectorielles de promotion des exportations. Nous estimons au niveau global et au niveau désagrégé des projections sur le long terme, ainsi que des fonctions dynamiques de demande d'exportation. Les résultats identifient un certain nombre de facteurs, tels que le revenu des partenaires commerciaux, les prix relatifs, les chocs de productivité, les catastrophes naturelles, les troubles politiques et les variations du taux de change, qui affectent la demande d'exportation pour le sucre, le tourisme et l'or, bien que l'impact soit différent. Par exemple, le tourisme et le sucre bénéficient de l'élasticité du revenu la plus élevée. L'exportation de sucre est affectée par les catastrophes naturelles et les bouleversements politiques. Les bouleversements politiques affectent également le tourisme dans les îles Fidji. Les variations du taux de change affectent l'exportation de sucre plus que les autres produits. Il faut soigneusement étudier l'idée selon laquelle, aux Fidji, la dévaluation monétaire va favoriser les exportations, car les résultats montrent que cela ne se produira qu'avec un coût élevé, c'est-à-dire qu'une dévaluation nominale de 5% sera nécessaire pour augmenter les exportations réelles de 1%.

Projecting populations for major Pacific Island countries with and without COVID-19: pro-active insights for population policy.

The paper projects aggregate populations of six Pacific Island countries in both pre- and post-COVID19 scenarios using a Cohort Component Method for the period 2020-2060. It uses baseline indicators resembling China and Italy's experiences and finds that Pacific countries could experience a fatality rate between 5 and 20% due to the pandemic. It also finds that most Pacific Island countries would experience higher fatalities in the older age groups, consistent with what is being witnessed in other countries around the world. The analysis also shows that while the risk escalates for people over 50 years onward in all other sample countries, in Fiji, those in the age range of 60 years or more are at higher risk. The findings also indicate that for all countries, the fatality rate for 80 years and older is about 50%. The population projections show that Fiji will be most impacted, while others will experience around 2% initial population decline. The convergence to baseline is found to be slow (except for Tonga) in most Pacific countries. Consequently, the paper suggests a cautious approach in dealing with the current crisis.

Socio-economic and demographic determinants of fertility in six selected Pacific Island Countries: An empirical study.

In this study, we seek to perform macro analysis of fertility in a panel of 6 selected Pacific Island Countries (PICs, hereafter). The macro analysis with secondary data, mostly obtained from World Bank database, stretched over the period 1990-2019 was stacked randomly in a balanced panel set-up, within which the most preferred fixed effect model is used for multivariate analysis. Pooled OLS and Random effect estimation techniques were applied for comparing results. Categories such as women's empowerment, health, connectivity and cost of living were used to classify proxy variables as regressors for fertility determination. The results indicate variables such as contraceptive prevalence rate, female labour force participation rate and consumer price index (inflation) are negatively correlated with fertility at 1% level, while urbanisation is negatively correlated with fertility rate only at 10% significance level. Real GDP has negative relationship with fertility, however it is not statistically significant. Variables that are positively correlated with fertility but hold limited to no significance effects are female secondary enrolment, female population, mobile subscription and infant mortality rate. It is implied that those variables that are negatively associated with fertility, as well as Real GDP will be the major drivers for achieving replacement level fertility in the long run.