This paper examines how economic openness influences regional development in the Philippines. It first looks at the disparities in economic and social indicators across the country's 14 regions and over time. Metro Manila continues to tower over the national economic landscape, though economic...

This paper examines the Philippines' investment climate in its many dimensions, relating these to the performance of the economy at the national, regional, and provincial levels. The central thesis is that the economy's slow growth over the past two decades or more can be attributed in large...

In 2015, the World Bank embarked on a collaborative effort to understand and address the jobs challenge in Mindanao through the Mindanao Jobs Report (MJR). Good jobs - jobs that raise real income and lift people out of poverty - were needed for more than two million Mindanawons who were either...