Competition has two possible contrasting effects on firm innovation. On one hand, competition can force SMEs to innovate to become more competitive. On the other hand, competition can shrink SME’s market share, revenues, and profit, making it difficult to implement financial-capital-intensive...

The Philippines' IT-BPO sector has grown steadily since its initial boom at the beginning of the 21st century. Sector revenue reached USD 22 billion in 2015 and is expected to overtake OFW remittances in 2017. In 2015, IT-BPO accounted for 7.3 percent of Philippine GDP and employed 1.2 million...

The Philippines is now one of the best-performing economies in the world. The country's macroeconomic environment is characterized by strong growth, low and stable inflation, a steady fiscal position, healthy current account surpluses, strong foreign direct investment, and abundant international...

Decentralization is a popular component of public sector reform in many developing countries. Local governments are thought to be able to adapt more quickly to local conditions and to respond more appropriately to the needs of their citizens. However, decentralization also has drawbacks....

The paper studied the factors affecting SME competitiveness in terms of their capacity to access, link, and upgrade as well as entrepreneurial characteristics and the business environment.Using a survey of 480 randomly selected SMEs in Metro Manila, Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, and Quezon,...

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected major industries, resulting in the transformation of the business landscape, and small businesses have taken a particularly severe impact. Whenever crises occur, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) tend to be more vulnerable than large...

In this study, we investigate the determinants of the public-private sector wage gap among nurses in Pampanga, Philippines. Using two estimation methods followed by a Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition of the wage differential, we study the extent to which this gap can be accounted for by differences...

Do burdensome regulatory environments inhibit firm growth? In this paper, we analyzed the effects of regulatory compliance in terms of time and money costs on the probability that a Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) can grow. We also tested whether the relationship between regulatory compliance...

This paper analyzed the relationship between firm characteristics and credit constraints among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Philippines. In particular, we determined whether an SME's firm characteristics are correlated to the predicted probability of being credit-constrained or...