Illness or injury, death of a family member, man-made calamities and natural disasters have a devastating effect on those poor households cash flow, liquidity and earning capacities and thus, on household welfare. Demand for micro-insurance products is growing in view of continuing risks to...

The Philippine microfinance industry has developed over the years. From only a few large microfinance institutions (MFIs) with less than a million clients in the late ’90s,the industry has now more than 2,000 MFIs with almost 7 million clients. Large commercial banks, which used to ignore the...

The shift to a market-oriented credit and financial policy was expected to spur rural financing by the private sector that would help usher growth in the agriculture and rural areas. However, the rural areas have continued to suffer from the lack of access to financial services of banks. Despite...

Private firms invest in physical capital and human resource but they are also advised to invest in innovations to be more productive and profitable. Innovations refer to the development, deployment, and economic utilization of new products, processes, and services. It is important for firms to...

This report gives deeper insights on how the infrastructure development is being funded in different ASEAN Member States (AMSs) for ASEAN Connectivity. In this regards, the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Program is also seen as one way to help build the infrastructure in ASEAN. The AMSs are...

The Port of Manila, the largest seaport in the country, has been recognized as the most widely used port in the Greater Capital Region with utilization rate of 71.6 percent compared to only 2.3 percent and 6.1 percent utilization of Batangas and Subic Ports, respectively (NEDA 2012). The ports...

When poor households face catastrophic events, they do not have any means for risk protection. Access to formal risk protection schemes such as insurance may be a more effective means to minimize the poor households' losses but traditional mainstream insurance has bypassed informal workers and...

The monetary approach to the balance of payments (BOP) takes the view that domestic credit is exogenous to BOP and that it is deteriorated by the excess money, which results from domestic credit expansion. This article determines whether in fact the assertion is true. Utilizing the method...