Purpose: The banking sector stability depends in large part on the size of non-performing loans (NPLs). Hence, the factors which explain the problem loans are very useful information for banks. Notably, studies in this regard with respect to the small developing countries’ banking sector have received less attention. Therefore, this study aims to examine the determinants of NPLs with a case of Fiji’s banking sector, over the period 2000-2013.Design/methodology/approach: The balanced sample consists of the entire banking sector (five commercial banks and two non-bank financial institutions). First, the authors estimate a base model which comprise bank-specific indicators that are related to bank management and then they extend the estimations to include macroeconomic/structural factors such as economic growth, inflation, changes of the real effective exchange rate, unemployment, remittances, political instability and external events like the global financial crisis. The estimations are done using pooled OLS, the random effects and the fixed effects regression methods.Findings: The results show that the following indicators have negative association with NPL and are statistically significant with the conventional levels: return on equity, capital adequacy requirement, market share based on assets, unemployment and time. On the other hand, the net interest margin has a positive and statistically significant association with NPL.Research limitations/implications: Subsequently, the stability of the banking sector in small developing countries such as Fiji is largely dependent on banks’ profitability, solvency, size in terms of market share and the presence of a learning curve and keeping a close tab on the interest rate spread between loans and deposits.Practical implications: The paper highlights the specific factors determining NPL in small developing economy of Fiji.Originality/value: This study is the first to examine specific factors determining NPLs with respect to small developing economies in the Oceania region.

We examine whether tourism sector development measured by visitor arrivals per capita has asymmetric growth effects in the Cook Islands using quarterly data from 2010Q1 to 2016Q3. Asymmetric cointegration, long-run elasticities, and dynamic multipliers are estimated using the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag model developed by Shin et al. Asymmetric causality testing is done using the asymmetric vector autoregression approach with insights from Hatemi-J. We identify structural breaks using the Lee and Strazicich multiple endogenous structural break unit root test. The results indicate that a 1% increase in visitor arrivals would increase gross domestic product (GDP) per capita by 0.92%, whereas a 1% decrease in visitor arrivals would decrease GDP per capita by 0.34%. The identified breaks, 2013Q2 and 2015Q3, are positive and significant in the short run only. The causality result confirms a bidirectional association, thus mutually reinforcing the asymmetric relationship between visitor arrivals and economic growth.