Past Research Projects

Empirical Study of the Impact of Infrastructure Building in Filipino Farms: the Role of Space, Infrastructure and Human Capital and the Impact of the Financial Crisis

With three objectives in mind, this study builds a nationwide panel database on agrarian reform communities in the Philippines (i.e. communities where agrarian reform takes place plus a control group). The first objective is to conduct an empirical micro-level analysis of the business model in the agrarian reform assistance project implemented by Japan under three aid schemes. The second objective is to study the impact of road, irrigation and other infrastructure building on expansion of the network inside and outside the region, on creation of agriculture produce markets and labor markets, on investment in children as human capital and on the selection of agricultural produce among other human behaviors. Included in this will be analysis of the roles played by farmers' organizations and traders. The third objective is to identify impediments to economic development in the rural Philippines, applying semi-macroeconomic analysis to panel data at the provincial level to propose specific poverty reduction solutions.