When the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program was designed, the government publicly promised to limit to five years the giving of the education and health grants. This five-year limit is almost over for the first set of beneficiaries by 2013. The natural policy question then is: Would it be wise...

The year 2013 marks the fifth year of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) implementation in the country since its inception in 2008. The first batch of beneficiaries will be graduating from the program in several months' time. Meanwhile, the government continues to expand the...

The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program has been much maligned and dismissed as a "dole-out" program. Critics have focused on the fact that it provides cash grants directly to poor families, believing it would promote the culture of mendicancy and dependence. Others believe that the grants would...

This study evaluates the impact of Microenterprise Development (MD) assistance on the labor supply, income, expenditure, savings, and capital investment of beneficiaries of Pantawid Pamilya, the Philippine government's conditional cash transfers (CCT) program. The assistance is provided by the...

This paper reviews the current empirical literature on competition and market structure of Philippine industries. It shows that weak competition is one of the fundamental factors that explain limited growth, productivity, and employment in the economy. Philippine experience has shown that...