The Philippine credit cooperatives have grown in financial resources and membership over the last three decades. These cooperatives are self-reliant and self-sustaining. This paper is an attempt to assess the importance and potential impact of any further sectoral development and to identify...

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...

The recent currency and financial turmoil in East Asia have led to the evaluation of current financial and macroeconomic policies. The Philippines, which has been the worst hit in the 1980 economic crisis has indicated greater resilience in the 1990 financial crisis. Experts have attributed this...

Innovation in credit programs has alleviated poverty. The premise is that credit accessibility translates into productive activities that aid households to battle poverty. Despite this, the formal rural lending institutions are meeting only a very small percentage of the rural demand for credit....

The Philippines is an archipelago of approximately 7,107 islands. It has a long coastline extending to 235,973 square kilometers which is longer than that of the United States (UNESCAP 2002b). The country’s archipelagic configuration requires an efficient maritime transport infrastructure...

It has been suggested that poor people lose from any food price increase engendered by inappropriate policies. In particular, protectionist policies impel an increase in the cost of living, which ultimately hurt the small farm households. Through estimation of household price elasticity of...

Following the global trend in using private sector participation in infrastructure financing and development, the Philippines has largely utilized privatization as a major approach to the development of infrastructure, particularly in power, water, transport, and telecommunications sectors. To...

Despite the government’s credit program approach, access of poor households to microfinancial services has remained limited. This paper explains the microfinance policy environment in the Philippines and evaluates the institutional and financial capacity/performance constraints of MFIs. This...

The government has estimated big amount of money for building new housing units and renovation/upgrading of old housing units for the 1993-1998. The rapid formation of new households has contributed to an acute demand for housing. Hence, the existence of demand-supply gap, mostly prominent in...

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 microinsurance products is growing in view of continuing risks to...