Pacific flows: The fluidity of remittances in the Cook Islands

Abstract: This paper contributes political and cultural‐economy perspectives to the critique of the MIRAB model 20 years on. In it, we celebrate the politically grounded reading by MIRAB analysts of development in the small island nations of the Pacific and their attention to both the empirical and the structural in their treatment of the economies of these countries. We address aspects, however, of one of the common critiques of MIRAB analyses: their failure to capture accurately the nature of small island socio‐cultural economies. We focus on the workings of remittance systems on two of the Cook Islands, Mauke and Manihiki, as the basis for a more thorough critique. We argue that rather than living economically and nationally determined lives, Cook Islanders live in rich networks of flows of goods, people, labour and meaning that the MIRAB model does not fully capture. The microeconomics of the transnational kin or household unit and the remittance decision are deeply embedded in such networks. These networks generate their own, temporary constellations of responsibility, economy and decision‐making, which may or may not materialise at any point as household economy. We consider some of the consequences of a network view for MIRAB analyses and for development in small island nations.     

Occupation‐specific analysis of migration and remittance behaviour: Pacific Island nurses in Australia and New Zealand

Abstract: Most previous empirical studies of migration and remittances ignored possible differences among occupational categories of migrants. Where human capital investment decisions and occupational choices are influenced by perceived prospects for international migration, internationally tradable occupations such as nursing are likely to attract individuals with particular attributes and with a stronger propensity to migrate. We argue that this can also affect the remittance behaviour of such occupational groups, pointing to the need for a disaggregated analysis by occupational category. This paper reports the results of a recent survey of nurses in Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, and nurse migrants from the same countries in Australia and New Zealand. We also report the findings from a re‐analysis of earlier remittance data from Tongan and Samoan migrants in Australia. Nurse household remittance behaviour is statistically different from others, with nurses remitting more generously and consistently over time. The reasons and implications are explored. The impact and volume of nurse remittances emphasise the sustainability of the migration, remittances, aid and bureaucracy (MIRAB) system.     

SITEs revisited: Socioeconomic and demographic contours of small island tourist economies

This study attempts to do three things: (i) provide a review of recent advances in the small island economy literature using the tourism penetration index, (ii) update the impact of tourism across the same global sample of 36 small islands (less than 1 million in population and 5000 km² in area) introduced in APV 47 (1) 2006, and (iii) employing an abbreviated version of the destination life cycle as a development paradigm, construct three different socioeconomic and demographic profiles based on low, intermediate and high tourism impact. Results using cross‐sectional data of 27 indicators reveal three statistically distinct profiles that demonstrate three stages of economic development. Specifically, the findings contrast the low‐income, labour‐exporting, least tourism‐penetrated MIRAB‐type (Migrant/Remittances and Aid/Bureaucracy) emerging islands with their more advanced intermediate impact neighbours. In turn, the latter fall at a significant distance from the most successful s mall i sland t ourist e conomy (SITE) destinations. Thus, this study further refines the characteristics of SITE islands and confirms the viability of tourism in general and the destination life cycle in particular as an effective engine and model, respectively, of island development.     

Breaking out of the MIRAB mould: historical evidence from Norfolk Island

The MIRAB model offers an explanation of the evolution and operation of some tiny Pacific island economies. Proponents of the model have argued that it describes an economic system that is durable and persistent. Using an historical approach, this paper explores whether and how an economy of the MIRAB type can break out of its structural mould without regressing to an earlier stage of development. After establishing that Norfolk Island possessed strong MIRAB characteristics from the end of World War II until the early 1960s, the paper analyses the tourism-dominated economic growth that erased these characteristics, or at least reduced them to insignificance. It concludes that the island has achieved a sustained break-out from the MIRAB mould, although not without incurring some social costs.     

US economic assistance to two Micronesian nations: Aid impact,dependency and migration

Abstract: The USA provides economic assistance to the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands under the Compacts of Free Association. Both economies demonstrate three of the four MIRAB components: migration, aid and bureaucracy. Only the remittance structure has not developed. Significant US assistance supported large government sectors in both nations. Reductions in US assistance of over a 17‐year period led many island citizens to migrate to the USA. However, to date, remittances have not been substantial. In addition to structural challenges, both nations face institutional constraints including poor governance and lack of accountability over assistance. To improve future growth through more effective use of US assistance, these institutional constraints must be overcome. Future US assistance to both nations will fall over the next 20 years, putting pressure on the island governments and will likely contract their economies. The need for remittance streams is likely to increase. New Compact assistance structures strive to improve aid accountability.     

Managing the hinterland beyond: Two ideal‐type strategies of economic development for small island territories

Abstract: Rarely does one come across critical analysis which looks at islands as the strategic and candid promoters of a role as political and economic usufructuaries over external resources. This paper is premised on the proposition that a small territory is especially obliged to use extra‐territorial resources as its hinterland for economic success. Such resources extend over a whole range of goods and services and include access to investment, welfare, security, stable currency, international relations, specialised labour power, transfers, markets and higher education. The MIRAB syndrome is one way of articulating this condition. This paper proposes a second cluster of features that are, or can be, deployed by small territories in a manner somewhat different from MIRAB; this second cluster has a more proactive policy orientation and a disposition towards carving out procedural and jurisdictional powers. It is thus proposed to consider a small territory's engagement with the external hinterland as a position on a sliding scale, a strategic mix of options located between two distinct development trajectories, of which MIRAB is one and the PROFIT model the other.     

Hurricanes and socio‐economic development on Niue Island

This case study investigates the complex ways that recurrent ecological damage affected the course of socio‐economic development on Niue Island, a Pacific micro‐state. In tracing the historical record of droughts and hurricanes from 1900 to 1990, it is clear that severely inclement weather repeatedly destroyed agricultural development endeavours on the island leading to stagnation in this economic sector. In the aftermath of such disasters there were additional widespread social, political, and economic responses resulting in insidious but inexorable change. These responses – metaphoric ‘winds of change’– constituted, bolstered and sustained the transition to a MIRAB economy.     

Losing ground? Tuvalu,the greenhouse effect and the garbage can

Abstract: Greenhouse‐induced sea‐level rise (SLR) threatens coral atolls and particularly the few atoll states, such as Tuvalu. This central Pacific island microstate has minimal economic development options, and has increasingly perceived emigration and remittances as a development strategy, despite restricted opportunities. Internal migration, in search of wage employment, has brought almost half the national population to Funafuti atoll, with negative local environmental consequences. Short‐term scientific data show no evidence of SLR in Tuvalu, but the Government of Tuvalu has argued that there is visual evidence of SLR, through such consequences as increased erosion, flooding and salinity. Global media have increasingly emphasised a doomsday scenario, with Tuvalu as synecdoche and symbol of all threatened island environments. Environmental problems of diverse origin have been entirely attributed to distant processes causing SLR, in terms of ‘garbage can anarchy’ or a ‘conspiracy narrative’, and thus to distant causes. The Tuvalu Government has consequently sought compensation from, and migration opportunities in, distant states. The construction of apparently imminent hazard has potential domestic political and economic advantages, but environmental costs.     

Who leads regional industrial dynamics? “New industry creators” in Chinese regions

Recent evolutionary economic geography studies have argued that regional diversification emerges as a path‐dependent process, as regions often branch into industries that are related to its industrial structure. However, it is less clear who are creating new industries and under what regional conditions. This research seeks to fill this gap and identify “new industry creators” in regional industrial diversification. We differentiate two types of new industry formation—path‐breaking and path‐dependent—and examine whether some new industry creators are more path‐breaking than others, by incorporating two factors that have been largely overlooked in recent literature on technological relatedness—firm heterogeneity and regional institutions. Based on a firm‐level data set of China’s manufacturing industries, this paper shows that path‐breaking and path‐dependence coexist. Empirical results confirm that firm heterogeneity and regional institutions not only affect the firms’ capabilities in creating new industries, but also encourage/discourage firms to be adventurous and path‐breaking. This research implies that lagging regions can catch up with developed regions by coordinating regional resources and adjusting local institutional arrangements to attract more path‐breaking firms.     

Changes in the economic fortunes of Pacific Islanders in the USA in the 1990s

Abstract: This paper shows that an important requirement of the MIRAB model, economic success in the host country, is a characteristic of Pacific Islander migrants to the USA and their offspring. Pacific Islanders improved their economic lot in the 1980s and again in the 1990s. Part of this improvement was due to increases in their human capital: Pacific Islanders acquired more education, work experience and better English language skills. This upgrading allowed more workers to acquire white‐collar jobs and to increase their earnings.     

Theories of governance and Pacific microstates: The cautionary tale of Tuvalu

Abstract: This paper questions the popularity of governance frameworks in explaining development failures and proposing new models of development for Pacific states. Such popularity is attributed to how problems are selected and framed (the doomsday scenario of demographic and environmental collapse, weakening of the state, and an upsurge in corruption) but also, and most importantly, to the recent hegemony of neo‐liberal theory in political economy. Taking the MIRAB microstate of Tuvalu as a counterexample, each of those pillars of governance theory is seen to be lacking or to require a more nuanced form of understanding. A brief analysis of how the dominant Protestant church fits into traditional and modern systems of administration illustrates the complexity of local issues. The essay concludes with a discussion of how the neo‐liberal governance orthodoxy lacks the critical insight into power and agency afforded by Foucault's concept of governmentality.     

Diaoyu Dao,Diaoyutai or Senkaku? Creative solutions to a festering dispute in the East China Sea from an ‘Island Studies’ perspective

This paper draws on extensive island examples with a view to offer ‘creative’ solutions to the ongoing dispute over the Diaoyu/Diaoyutai/ Senkaku Islands between China (and Taiwan) and Japan in the East China Sea. In spite of the rhetoric and apparent intractability of island conflicts, there are various examples from the past (and the present) that suggest how island disputes may be decided, and in ‘win–win’ ways, to the satisfaction of the different parties involved. The resolution of island territorial problems can benefit greatly from a critical appreciation of how other small islands, also contested, have had their situation resolved in non‐zero‐sum ways. In such cases, sovereignty has been shared, split/divided or expunged; in other cases, sovereignty disputes have been put aside in order to co‐develop and co‐exploit natural resources. There is also one example of a UNESCO World Heritage Site consisting of a string of small islands and surrounding waters whose management is shared between three countries.     

Resource Flows and the Decomposition of Regional Inequality in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Metropolitan Region, 1990–2004

This paper introduces a new way of decomposing regional inequality. It divides the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei metropolitan region into three sets of districts in terms of the urban–rural resource flows: urban, peri‐urban, and peripheral areas. Unlike the administrative divisions, these three sets of districts show how resource flows and agglomerates at the regional level. The paper decomposes regional inequality according to the three sets of districts. The paper's findings show that regional inequality decreased between 1990 and 1994, after which it remained steady. The study, for the first time, brings peri‐urban areas into a regional decomposition analysis, and contributes to the understanding of urban–rural resource flows and inequality changes at the regional level.     

Remittances sent by a growing altruistic diaspora: How do they grow over time?

Abstract: This paper investigates theoretically the time pattern of remittances sent home by a growing diaspora of emigrants who are motivated by altruism rather than pure self‐interest. Migrants are assumed to care about the consumption of home‐resident family members as well as their own welfare. Hence, remittance effort will depend upon the ratios of per capita income and income growth rates between the host country and the home country. Effort will depend also on the number of emigrants sending back remittances to each home‐resident household. In general, the effect of remittances is to sustain growth of consumption per capita in the home country above the growth rate of per capita GDP. A priori, there is no necessary tendency for remittance effort to rise or fall over time. Falling remittance amounts per migrant may occur as the diaspora grows relative to the home population, but should not be treated as evidence of so‐called ‘remittance fatigue’. A number of feasible scenarios are traced out, and some opportunities are identified to use statistical tests to adjudicate between self‐interest and altruism as motives for sending remittances.     

Researching Pacific island livelihoods: mobility, natural resource management and nissology

Small island literature is vast in focus and aim, and is rooted in many different disciplines. The challenge is to find common grounds for researching small islands conceptually and theoretically. The aim of this article is to comment on how to research small islands, including a discussion on contemporary theories of nissology and conceptual analytical frameworks for island research. Through a review of selected case-study-based island literature on changing livelihoods coming out of the South Pacific, we wish to illustrate and discuss advantages of finding common grounds for small island studies. The focus is on two dimensions of island livelihood, migration and natural resource management, both of which are significant contributors in making island livelihoods and shaping Pacific seascapes. We argue that there is still a substantial lack of studies targeting small island dynamics that are empirical and interdisciplinary in focus and link socio-economic and ecological processes of small island societies at temporal and analytical scales.     

Livelihoods,leadership, linkages and locality: The Simbo for Change project

This paper analyses the ‘Simbo for Change’ project in the Western Province of Solomon Islands, a collaboration between Simbo leaders and a Samoan non‐governmental organisation (NGO), with funding provided by the Australian aid programme. We explore the role of local leadership in catalysing an island‐wide community development project that has generated new livelihoods opportunities and led to greater community cohesion and more proactive governance. By mobilising around a ‘collective subject’ (Simbo as an island community), the project allowed existing skills and practices to be revalued and extended, particularly in relation to chiefly governance and the standing of women in the community. While mobilising the island scale was important in building social cohesion and support for livelihoods activities, this was not a parochial identity but was redefined by stronger connections to off‐island markets, organic accreditation for Simbo, renewed interest from provincial and national government authorities and by the enduring trans‐Pacific friendships established with the Samoan NGO and its trainers. The case study provides an example of the constructive potential of the island scale in Melanesia, whereas other recent studies of similar scale‐making processes have focused on violent conflict generated by industrial scale mining.     

Association mapping of leaf traits in spinach (Spinacia oleracea L.)

Spinach (Spinacia oleracea L.) is an important leafy vegetable crop grown worldwide. Leaf traits, surface texture (smooth, savoy or semi‐savoy), petiole colour (different shades of green vs. purple) and edge shape (serrate vs. entire), are important commercial traits of spinach. Association mapping for the three traits was conducted on 323 USDA spinach germplasm accessions, originally collected from 33 countries and representing the entire USDA spinach germplasm collection. The majority of accessions were from Europe (36.3%), Asia (25.3%) and North America (15.8%). The majority of the spinach accessions (82.0%) were smooth (unwrinkled types), whereas the savoy and semi‐savoy types (wrinkled types) accounted for 18.0%. The collection contained 74.9% green petiole types, while the purple petioles consisted of 25.1%. The collection consisted of 27.2% serrated leaf types and 72.8% entire leaf edge types. Genotyping‐by‐sequencing (GBS) was used for single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) discovery, and SNPs were used as genotypic data to conduct genetic diversity and association mapping of the three leaf traits. Five genetic subpopulations and principal components (PCs) were postulated by structure 2 and JMP Genomics 7 for this association panel. Five, seven and 14 SNPs were identified to be associated with surface texture, edge shape and petiole colour, respectively. This study provides us an approach to identify SNP markers through association analysis in spinach and thus leads to select these three leaf traits through marker‐assisted selection in spinach breeding programme.     

New Polynesian Triangle: Rethinking Polynesian migration and development in the Pacific

For many Polynesians migration is still framed within a particular spatial context, although on an enlarged scale – one that we have termed the New Polynesian Triangle. With its apexes in the North American continent to the east, Australia in the west and New Zealand in the south, this New Polynesian Triangle encompasses a particular field through which ongoing Polynesian migration and movement continues to occur. Movement within this New Polynesian Triangle is both multidimensional and multidirectional. While it is the movement of economic resources, particularly remittances, that has captured the interest of many agencies operating in the region, we argue that such economic flows are integrally linked with other flows – of goods, ideas, skills and culture – to form a single dynamic system of movement. Importantly, such flows are not uni‐directional (from ‘rich’ to ‘poor’ countries) as was assumed in times past. In developing ideas on the New Polynesian Triangle, we wish to move away from the dominant Western discourse of the Pacific Ocean as a barrier to development and movement and towards the reclamation of the ocean as a conduit and source of connection and movement for Pacific peoples.