Comment – Long-term productivity in the French Pacific territories

[eng] Limited access and small size of the domestic market hamper long term productivity gains of New Caledonia and French Polynesia, like independent small island economies. Institutional agreements setting up their relationship within France also impact their productivity. The two articles presented here analyse long term productivity gains, for the first one through total factor productivity and for the second one through labor productivity. They both conclude that the two entities have barely experienced productivity gains since the early nineties and that their growth dynamics were mostly extensive. Local governments economic policies – specifically revenue policy and competition policy – will play a crucial role to promote productivity gains needed to ensure long term growth of the two economies.