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...

Following an earlier paper titled "Population and Poverty: The Real Score" (UPSE Discussion Paper 0415, December 2004), the present paper was first issued in August 2008 as a contribution to the public debate on the population issue that never seemed to die in this country. The debate heated up...

This study measures congestion in major container ports and investigates how port characteristics and regional factors influence congestion during the COVID-19 periods. We develop port congestion indicators, including vessel arrivals, vessels staying in a period, waiting time, and service time....

We use a unique Philippine firm-level database consisting of trade transactions data merged with firm surveys of manufacturing establishments covering the period from 2013 to 2019 to examine which exporting and importing firms are potentially vulnerable to the economic slowdown brought about by...