In drawing up the negotiating stance of the Philippines in light of the Philippine-European Union, it is important to articulate its offensive and defensive interests. Indications of the offensive and defensive interests can be gleaned from standard measures of competitiveness as well of...

Free trade agreements (FTAs) and regional trade agreements (RTAs), as a national policy, have proliferated in the recent decades as countries perceived trade agreements to effectively reduce trade barriers, thus helping expand market access, protect local markets, and enhance efficiency and...

This report argues that improving local service delivery (LSD) is about improving people’s lives. It is premised on the idea that better provision of public goods and services is a prerequisite to realizing human capabilities, thus expanding human freedoms and enhancing human lives for a...

How should local service delivery of public goods and services be improved for desirable development outcomes? This paper attempts at answering this question by providing a framework for improving local service delivery. It argues that improving local service delivery is a function of...

This project aims to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the government's irrigation program. It focuses on technical, physical, and institutional aspects of performance of both national (NIS) and communal irrigation systems (CIS), and selected case studies. The governance component...

This paper develops a modality of liberalization for APEC, based on a sectoral level, as an alternative to the politically-sensitive Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP). This model, originally developed by Wonnacott (1994), argues for the liberalization of sectors on an MFN basis, where...