This paper discusses the performance of the Philippine economy as it recovers from the Asian financial crisis and the challenges the country faces in sustaining the recovery and propelling the economy to a higher growth path. The economy has some strengths such as relatively healthy financial...

This paper has re-examined the role of Land Bank of the Philippines, a government-owned bank, in light of the recent reforms and developments in the Philippine financial markets. It recommends that the Land Bank should shed off its commercial and investment functions, which can very well be done...

Despite the measures that have already been put in place to strengthen the international financial architecture in the wake of the Asian financial crisis, still much remain to be done. This paper tried to distinguish developing economies' views, in general, and East Asian views, in particular,...

This paper has reviewed four major developments in the last 30 years: the collapse of the Bretton Woods arrangements; deepening of economic integration worldwide; the frequency and severity of the crises that affected not only developing economies but developed economies as well; and the formation...

The recent spate of banking and currency crises has underscored the need to develop early warning systems. These are based on economic indicators of vulnerability, which can be identified from models and theories of crises. First generation models focus on the inconsistency of macroeconomic...

This paper has reviewed existing policies and programs to encourage banks to expand their financial services to micro, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MicSMEs) and poor households. The overall policy environment for promoting microfinance in the Philippines has indeed considerably improved...

In a modern economy, the payment system is a major component of the country's infrastructure system. Indeed, no country nowadays can afford to take its payment system for granted. Advances in information technology and changes in laws, institutions and regulations in some countries have...

ASEAN economies have long recognized the importance of developing a deep and broad domestic debt securities market to complement the banking system in efficiently mobilizing and allocating financial resources. However, it was only in the early 1990s that they started to make bold steps to build...

This paper attempted to test whether efficient cooperative rural banks (CRBs) have a better control of their agency costs. We used two different concepts of efficiency, namely, cost efficiency and alternative profit efficiency, and found somewhat different results from both approaches. Using...

The country's central bank has a profound impact on the lives of all residents in the country. This paper attempted to put some policy issues on central banking in the country in certain perspectives so that policy debates on these issues can proceed with greater focus. More specifically, it...