Numerous studies have tried to explain the poor growth performance of the Philippines. This paper critically reviews related literature on constraints to long-run growth, as it applies to the Philippines. We evaluate several factors, namely: culture, corruption, and institutions. The last offers...

For the Philippines, quantitative policy analysis should incorporate regional differences in welfare and economic structure, which arise partly from geographic constraints. However, existing CGE models offer limited analysis of regional effects or national impacts of region-specific...

Fruits and vegetables comprise a large and dynamic subsector within Philippine agriculture. However, the country's agricultural development strategy continues to emphasize traditional crops. Evidence points to a significant role for fruits and vegetables in agricultural diversification and rural...

Sustaining and accelerating agricultural growth remains a development imperative in view of persistent rural poverty and emerging threats to food security. While growth can be achieved by expansion of agricultural area and input intensification, growth through improvement in productivity is a...

The Philippines has made a major push toward development of biofuel, enacting biofuels mandates and subsidies by the Biofuels Law. To maintain food security, biofuels policies currently restrict feedstock production to marginal lands. This raises its own issues related to commercial viability,...

The Philippines is a developing country with strong commitment to the millennium development goals (MDGs). However, it faces challenges in closing MDG gaps, owing to mediocre growth, macroeconomic instability, and financing constraints. Since the 1990s, increases in per capita incomes have been...

This paper constructs a framework for and reviews studies on property rights reforms in the agricultural and natural resources sector. In the case of agrarian reform, several hypotheses are posited: that agrarian reform will increase the rate of capital accumulation of beneficiaries and improve...

Inadequate application of nitrogen (N) fertilizer has been identified by the Food Staples Sufficiency Program as a major constraint in achieving rice self-sufficiency. The available literature on fertilizer application in the Philippines tends to find inadequate N application under the agronomic...

Inclusive business (IB) is a private sector approach to providing goods, services, and livelihoods on a commercially viable basis, either at scale or scalable, to people at the base of the pyramid by making them part of the value chain of companies' core business as suppliers, distributors,...

A comprehensive assessment of irrigation investment should examine not just the benefits, but also make a systematic comparison of benefits with costs. This study has conducted this systematic comparison for investments undertaken in 2008-2016. Across various assessment frames, the findings...