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Countries across the Pacific are going through significant educational reforms. One of the most significant reforms within the education sector relates to education of children with disabilities. There is a push at the regional level to include students with disabilities in mainstream schools. Many countries are in the process of either revising existing policies or drafting new policy documents to implement inclusive education practices. One group of stakeholders that is going to be directly influenced by the policies is the families of children with disabilities. No attempts have been made to understand what parents think about the new policy directions. In this chapter, we make an attempt to present parental perspective about inclusive education from four countries of the Pacific (Fiji, Samoa, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu). We believe understanding parental perspectives about inclusive education from the Pacific will shed some light on how likely the new reform will be embraced by them. It will also identify any significant issues of concern that may need to be considered for successful implementation of inclusive education reform in the Pacific.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the firm efficiency or technical efficiency (TE), pure technical efficiency (PTE) and scale efficiency (SE) in the selected developed and developing Asia-Pacific countries.

The sample consists of a sum of 700 firms in selected developed and developing Asia-Pacific countries over the period from 2009 to 2015. The non-parametric data envelopment analysis under the production approach is used to investigate firm efficiency.

On average, this paper discovers that the firms in selected Asia-Pacific countries are moderately efficient. Scale inefficiency (SIE) is found to be the dominant source of firms’ technical inefficiency. The analysis of return to scale shows that the large firms tend to operate at decreasing return to scale level, while the small firms tend to operate at increasing return to scale level.

The findings from this paper provide significant insights to the policy makers and firm managers in promoting the efficient firms of Asia-Pacific countries.

The present paper conducts a critical analysis on return to scale in the firms sector of Asia-Pacific context, which is ignored by the past studies on firm efficiency since the analysis of return to scale is mostly emphasized on banking sector. The precise nature of SIE is important for a firm to be efficient in achieving the firm’s primary goals of profit maximization and sustaining market competitiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of trade policy pertaining to imported processed food on poorer health outcomes of people’s in the Pacific island countries.

Using an extended gravity model, the paper adopts the OLS time varying importer/exporter effects method and a Pseudo Poisson maximum likelihood estimator on a cross-sectional panel data set of 215 countries and territories. The estimation procedure controlled for 11 Pacific island countries between 2003 and 2013.

The empirical findings revealed a positive and statistically significant relationship between trade liberalisation and increased processed food imports in the Pacific island countries. The findings also reveal that the access ratio (kg/person) to selected imported processed food high in salt to Pacific island countries has increased significantly over time.

While much of the trade literature reveals positive impact of trade on the prosperity of nations, this study makes a new contribution in terms of supporting a negative impact of trade liberalisation policy on people’s health in small island developing states.

Examines the socio‐economic situation of the least developed Pacific Island nations (Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Samoa, Tuvalu and Kiribati) and the type of economics development advice which they have been given in recent years. Suggests that this advice was based on neo‐classical models and was insensitive to the institutional and cultural backgrounds of these countries. Argues that because of the insensitivity, proposed policies may be doomed and could result in further economic hardship.

This chapter models industrial, tech, and financial cooperation between Russia and the countries of the Asia-Pacific region. We use several complex methods of economic and mathematical modeling to analyze specific features of such cooperation and determine critical factors in industrial, technological, and financial development. The preferable choice for the Asia-Pacific region is cooperation with Russia, which is ready for an increase in imports of industrial and high-tech products as well as joint industrial innovational entrepreneurship. Investments would lead to synergetic effects, ensuring simultaneous industrial, technological, and financial development.

The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical study of the contribution of the services sector to per capita economic growth for Pacific Island countries.

Within the new growth theory framework, the empirical procedure consisted of the regression analysis of data using the panel data fixed effects procedure.

The results confirm the positive and statistically significant correlation of services growth to per capita gross domestic product growth.

Limitations largely centre on the use of aggregate cross‐country data. Variations may be found in what actually drives the services growth at the country level. Thus, a country‐specific study would be more appropriate in order to get more robust results. Also, the data do not capture the effect of non‐market services. Disaggregate services data that separate market data services with non‐market services would provide a more accurate picture of the influence of non‐market services.

The practical implication is that that service sectors in the Pacific Island countries ought to be given greater support, for example, investment in physical and institutional infrastructure, market access, financial support, skill development and investment incentives.

Pacific Islands services sectors contribute to household welfare through paid employment and meet household demands of service sector output.

This paper presents the first study among the Pacific Island countries that has examined the importance of services sector and its contribution to growth. The findings of this study are useful to Pacific policy makers in terms of improving the services sector through instituting appropriate growth enhancing policies.

Examines the importance of the Pacific Rim in terms of its market potential and of economic growth. Looks at the extent to which it rivals the European Community, and also the implications of the developments in the Pacific Rim for international marketing strategy. Concludes that the Pacific Rim is a reality with respect to the economic development of several Pacific Rim countries over the past decade, and with respect to the level of trade within that area. Proposes, however, that it is still a vision with respect to developing close formal ties with the European Community.

There are only a few dozen Canadian companies which market industrial technology in developing countries of Pacific Asia. A survey of there perceptions and strategies indicates that while they believe there is no shortage of opportunities and no insurmountable market barriers in the region, it is important to have a well conceived marketing plan and be realistic in the expectations. On the whole, they are satisfied with their experience. Hopefully, this will induce more Canadian industrial companies to explore the Pacific Asia market and in turn help to realize Canada's potential in the region.