After a very rapid economic boom in the sixties, due to the installation of the Pacific Testing Centre and the construction of airports in Tahiti and its islands, French Polynesia experienced an almost continuous decline in its growth during the next four decades, before plunging into an economic depression since 2009. This research analyses the factors of growth (labour, capital intensity, human capital, total factor productivity) in French Polynesia over the period 1960-2006, after reconstituting long and consistent series of the variables studied and compares them with metropolitan France (including overseas Departments). Total factor productivity has been a negative contributor to growth over 1988-1996 and since 2001. These long episodes of low total factor productivity could be indicative of the existence of significant structural barriers to growth, such as high costs typical of small island economies, as well as misallocation of resources due to a lack of entrepreneurial dynamism and an excess of protectionism.

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Dropsy, V. & Montet, C. (2018). Economic growth and productivity in French Polynesia: a long-term analysis. Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, 499, 5-27.
https://doi.org/10.24187/ecostat.2018.499s.1937