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...

That poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon is no longer debatable. What remains a contentious issue is whether the various dimensions of individual deprivation should be aggregated

This is a follow up note on the UP School of Economics Faculty paper on the population issue. The poor who belong to the lowest two deciles of the income distribution have much higher actual and desired number of children, respectively 5.2 and 3.5. In contrast, the upper middle and higher income...

Using a panel dataset from cities and municipalities in the Philippines in 2001, 2004 and 2007, we investigate whether yardstick competition

The promotion of oil palm production as an agribusiness development policy is a major issue in response to the increasing demand of palm oil in the Philippines. This paper focused on oil palm production cooperatives composed of agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) as members who were granted the...

The Philippines now appears well poised for an economic take off and sustained long-run growth. It recently posted an impressive 6.4% growth in the first quarter of 2012, up from 4.9% in the same period last year, has experienced a surge in merchandise exports, and is on the brink of an...

The 1991 Local Government Code devolved substantial spending, taxing, and borrowing powers to local government units. Moving governance closer to the people can generate a welfare gain but local governments must have adequate revenues to finance local development. The paper examines the current...