The socio-economic situation of small banana growers generated a lot of issues among researchers. However, the situation drastically changed because land distribution became possible through the Collective Certificate of Land Ownership (CLOA) issuance under the CARP. CLOA is issued to...

Recent work has documented industrial output growth around the poor periphery from 1870 to the present, finding unconditional convergence on the leaders long before the modern BRICS and even before the Asian Tigers. The Philippines was very much part of that catching up. In the decade or so up...

Cesar Virata's tenure as secretary/minister of Finance is the longest held by any head of department in Philippine history. This study reviews his contributions to the evolution and reform of the Philippine tax system which were significant, sustained and consistent. His contributions helped to...

This paper presents new evidence on the role of subsidized contraceptives in influencing fertility behavior. It draws on two types of disruptions that affected the public supply of free contraceptives in the Philippines: a sharp reduction induced by the phase out of contraceptive donations to...

Documentary evidence of the emergence and the eventual complete dominance of the Chinese mercantile traders (Sangleys) during the Spanish colonial period in the Philippines is first presented. We identify the critical traits in the Sangley mercantile genome and the new contractual and...

We investigate the effects of two accountability measures on the decisions of the local governments under decentralization. Using a panel of Philippine municipalities and cities in three election years, we find that term limits have negative but weak effects on the provision of health insurance...

The paper tries to explain why women in the Philippines, as yet a low middle income country, obtain higher levels of education than boys. Four empirically based reasons are posited - the substantial expansion of the education system, the growth of job opportunities, the culture that encourages...

A lack of maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) equity analysis in recent years has led to a substantive gap in the literature. Responding to this, we use the best available country data and the most advanced methods to investigate the levels and distribution of, and the trends in, both MNCH...

In 2010, the Philippines appeared to be on track to attain by 2015 its target for Millennium Development Goals 4 (Reduce child mortality), but less so for Goal 7 (Ensure environmental sustainability). In pursuit of the latter, the government expands its provision of water and services to more...

We show that the most important barriers to investment and growth in the Philippines are structural and institutional problems that are characteristic of limited access societies, which can be more effectively and efficiently overcome by prioritizing 'first-order' market reforms that increase...