This book examines all major facets of the Philippine economy and development policy. Contributors to this volume look both to the past and to the future, and their approaches are variously descriptive, analytical, interpretive, and comparative. The book assesses trends since the 1980s, identifies major policy issues, and provides a balance sheet of achievements and deficiencies over the past decade and beyond. It highlights future challenges that need to be addressed if the country is to embark on a sustainable, durable, and equitable growth trajectory. The book also offers lessons from the...

Poverty and (under)development are the subjects of this book. While the focus is on urban poverty, the principal themes running throughout the book apply as well to rural poverty. The book traces the roots of the Philippine-poverty problem to industrialization and spatial policies that unduly encouraged concentration of infrastructure and social services in major urban centers; to trade and macroeconomic policies that severely penalized agriculture, labor-intensive exports, and small- to medium-scale manufacturing establishments; to public spending policies that accorded little attention to...