This paper addresses the question whether and to what extent remittances contribute to poverty alleviation and regional development in the Philippines. It first revisits the causes and consequences of international migration, drawing on the more recent literature. It then zeroes in on...

The paper explores how well the National Climate Budget (NCB), starting in 2016, has supported the climate reform agenda articulated in the National Climate Change Action Plan 2011-2028 (NCCAP), now on its 14th year. It observes that the NCB, as appropriated, grew from P175 billion in 2016 to...

Partnership between the public and private sectors, the main constituents of the economy, is not only logical but seems like a natural institutional arrangement. It can be a symbiotic relationship which brings about mutually beneficial processes and outcomes that redound to the economy and...

The effect of the performance of the judicial system has been thrown into the limelight as the business sector has in various surveys pointed to its performance as being one of the main obstacles and disincentives to doing business in the Philippines. The channels through which judicial...

In developing countries like the Philippines, a major policy concern is the inequity in access to health and education services. In this paper, we investigate the effects of factors over which households have control ('choices') or none ('circumstances') on their access to basic services. Our...

This study investigates the importance of leadership as a driver of local government innovations. Based on a survey of 209 innovations introduced in selected 48 local governments in the Philippines during the period June 2004-June 2008, the observable qualities and possible incentives of...

The Philippines became independent in 1946 but its legal and constitutional framework was erected in the 1935 Constitution. The 1987 Constitution did little to change these provisions in the midst of economic reforms that were undertaken to improve the legal basis of doing business and promoting...

The most important role that fiscal policy can play with regard to growth is to ensure macroeconomic stability. But despite two highly visible tax reform programs in less than two decades, the Philippines is now in the midst of a fiscal crisis. This has been brought about by pressures on the...

Official statistics from the National Income Accounts (NIA) in the Philippines depicts an economy that has grown faster after the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC). Although the higher growth of output after the AFC was accompanied by higher real growth rates of personal consumption and the service...