Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Karl Robert L Jandoc Author-Name-First: Karl Robert Author-Name-Last: Jandoc Author-Workplace-Name: School of Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman Title: Childhood Nutrition and Labor Market Outcomes: A Sequential Mediation Analysis Abstract: This paper investigates the long-term economic consequences of childhood nutrition in the Philippines, focusing on the mediating roles of cognitive development and schooling. Using longitudinal data from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey (CLHNS), we apply a sequential mediation analysis using the inverse odds ratio weighting (IORW) approach to decompose the total effect of severe stunting on adult labor market outcomes into direct effects and indirect effects through IQ and educational attainment. The results show that severe stunting significantly reduces both the likelihood of formal employment and daily earnings in early adulthood. Severely stunted children were about 28% less likely to be employed in the formal sector and earned 20% less per day compared to their non-stunted peers at age 22. Mediation analysis reveals that the indirect effect through IQ alone is modest, but the sequential pathway through IQ and college graduation accounts for about one-third of the total effect on formal employment and about 15% of the effect on daily earnings. Length: 20 pages Creation-Date: 2026-02 Publication-Status: Published as UPSE Discussion Paper No. 2026-01, February 2026 File-URL: https://pre.econ.upd.edu.ph/upsedp/index.php/dp/article/view/1568 File-Format: Application/pdf Number: 202601 Classification-JEL: I15, I25, J24 Keywords: Childhood nutrition; stunting; cognitive development; education; labor market outcomes; sequential mediation analysis; inverse odds ratio weighting Handle: RePEc:phs:dpaper:202601 Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Karl Robert L. Jandoc Author-Name-First: Karl Robert Author-Name-Last: Jandoc Author-Workplace-Name: School of Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman Author-Name: Arturo Jr. Martinez Author-Name-First: Arturo Jr. Author-Name-Last: Martinez Author-Workplace-Name: Asian Development Bank Author-Name: Joseph Albert Niño Bulan Author-Name-First: Joseph Albert Niño Author-Name-Last: Bulan Author-Workplace-Name: Asian Development Bank Author-Name: Rhea Molato Author-Name-First: Rhea Author-Name-Last: Molato Author-Workplace-Name: Asian Development Bank Author-Name: Aileen Guyos Author-Name-First: Aileen Author-Name-Last: Guyos Author-Workplace-Name: Asian Development Bank Title: Profiling Platform Workers in the Philippines: Evidence from the Jobs and Skills Survey Abstract: Non-traditional platform work has grown rapidly in the Philippines amid technological change and longstanding labor-market constraints. Using nationally representative data from the 2025 Jobs and Skills Survey (JSS), this study provides a detailed profile of workers engaged in these emerging forms of employment. The JSS captures worker characteristics, motivations, task content, digital engagement, job quality, social protection access, and workplace conditions. Results show that platform workers are disproportionately young, urban, and highly educated, with strong geographic concentration in NCR and major urban corridors. Motivations reveal a coexistence of opportunity and vulnerability: flexibility and autonomy attract many workers—especially women and home-based freelancers—while drivers and delivery workers often enter due to limited job alternatives. Platform work exhibits lower Routine Task Intensity and strong digital complementarity but also substantial overskilling, indicating persistent skill underutilization. Despite high job satisfaction, platform workers—particularly those in delivery, driving, and outside-home services—face significantly lower access to employer-provided pension, health insurance, and separation benefits, even after controlling for worker and firm characteristics. These findings underscore the heterogeneity of non-traditional work and highlight the need for balanced policy responses that expand worker protection without constraining the flexibility and innovation that make these jobs attractive for many Filipinos. Length: 50 pages Creation-Date: 2026-03 Publication-Status: Published as UPSE Discussion Paper No. 2026-02, March 2026 File-URL: https://pre.econ.upd.edu.ph/upsedp/index.php/dp/article/view/1569 File-Format: Application/pdf Number: 202602 Classification-JEL: J22, J24, J46, J81 Keywords: platform work; non-traditional employment; skills; tasks; employment benefits; digital technology; Philippines Handle: RePEc:phs:dpaper:202602 Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Jan Carlo B. Punongbayan Author-Name-First: Jan Carlo Author-Name-Last: Punongbayan Author-Workplace-Name: School of Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman Title: Oil price pass-through in the Philippines: decomposing fuel and non-fuel inflation Abstract: This paper estimates the pass-through of world oil price innovations to Philippine fuel prices and headline CPI, and decomposes total CPI pass-through into a fuel-basket component and a residual non-fuel component. Using a structural VAR and 25 years of monthly pump price data, I find that a 10 percentage point increase in year-on-year oil price growth is associated with about a 4.9 percentage point increase in gasoline price growth and a 6.6 percentage point increase in diesel price growth at 12 months, while the corresponding effect on headline CPI inflation is about 0.65 percentage points. The residual non-fuel component accounts for the larger share of the CPI response, though its estimated magnitude is somewhat sensitive to the estimation method. Results are robust to extensions with the exchange rate and rice prices, local projections with HAC inference, alternative data transformations, sub-period splits around the TRAIN Law, and an alternative pump price series. Length: 34 pages Creation-Date: 2026-03 Publication-Status: Published as UPSE Discussion Paper No. 2026-03, March 2026 File-URL: https://pre.econ.upd.edu.ph/upsedp/index.php/dp/article/view/1570 File-Format: Application/pdf Number: 202603 Classification-JEL: E31, Q43, C32, F31 Keywords: oil price pass-through; consumer prices; structural VAR; Philippines Handle: RePEc:phs:dpaper:202603 Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Jan Carlo B. Punongbayan Author-Name-First: Jan Carlo Author-Name-Last: Punongbayan Author-Workplace-Name: School of Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman Title: Obeying in advance: Duterte’s election and the onset of the Philippine drug war Abstract: I use event-level data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) to estimate the impact of Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs” on political violence in the Philippines. Constructing a balanced panel of 80 provinces observed weekly from January 2016 through June 2017, I estimate event-study and difference-in-differences models that compare drug-war-tagged fatalities against a within-country placebo—non-drug-war political violence (battles, explosions, and non-drug violence against civilians). The headline finding is that the placebo series exhibits no discontinuity around either the election or the inauguration, while drug-war fatalities show a sharp, immediate spike. The violence increase is there-fore specific to the drug war, rather than reflecting general conflict trends, ACLED source-coverage changes, or other simultaneous shocks. As a precondition for this comparison, I show that the relevant event date is the May 9 presidential election, not the June 30 inauguration. I discuss identification challenges including anticipation effects, the endogeneity of ACLED’s tagging, and the absence of cross-regional treatment variation. Length: 33 pages Creation-Date: 2026-05 Publication-Status: Published as UPSE Discussion Paper No. 2026-04, May 2026 File-URL: https://pre.econ.upd.edu.ph/upsedp/index.php/dp/article/view/1571 File-Format: Application/pdf Number: 202604 Classification-JEL: K42, D74, O17 Keywords: Philippines; war on drugs; event study; political violence; Duterte Handle: RePEc:phs:dpaper:202604 Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Toby C. Monsod Author-Name-First: Toby Author-Name-Last: Monsod Author-Workplace-Name: School of Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman Title: Financing the Philippines’ Low Carbon Transition: Status and Prospects Abstract: We set out to understand the resource requirements of the Philippines’ low carbon transition, the sources of low carbon finance, and the chances that supply of low carbon finance will be responsive to demand at scale. We find that the country will require an initial USD 94.2 billion for measures that are expected to contribute an emissions reduction of 990mmtCO2e out of a pledged 2505 mmtCO2e, or 39.5 percent of the country’s Nationally Determined Contribution, and that private and public capital are expected to cover this amount in a 63 - 37% split. We determine that prospects are relatively high for an overwhelming 95.4% of the required amount, an assessment that rests on the positive market response to energy sector initiatives and management, and hinges critically on the government’s ability to extract pre-requisite transmission investments from its privately-owned transmission service provider in a timely manner. For 1.8%, prospects are fair and involve technologies dependent on nascent markets or behavioral change, such as accepting Energy Efficiency as the “first fuel” in the energy mix and all that this implies. For the remaining 2.8%, prospects are low, hindered by governance dysfunctions that have long-undermined efficiency in the agriculture, waste and road-based public transport sectors. While representing just 2.8% of the required amount, these programs and measures account for 30% of the 990 mmtCO2e emissions reduction targeted and, more importantly, feed into or coincide with food and water security strategies prioritized under the country’s climate change adaptation plan. Securing the 2.8% is not optional in other words. Thus, fixing institutions is the first and most important finance strategy moving forward. Length: 42 pages Creation-Date: 2026-05 Publication-Status: Published as UPSE Discussion Paper No. 2026-05, May 2026 File-URL: https://pre.econ.upd.edu.ph/upsedp/index.php/dp/article/view/1572 File-Format: Application/pdf Number: 202605 Classification-JEL: Q54, Q58, Q01, O20, O16, O53 Keywords: low carbon transition; low carbon finance; green finance; Philippines’ Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC); governance Handle: RePEc:phs:dpaper:202605 Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: E. Annette Balaoing-Pelkmans Author-Name-First: E. Annette Author-Name-Last: Balaoing-Pelkmans Author-Workplace-Name: School of Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman Title: Pax Silica and the Philippine Industrial Upgrading Challenge: A Tatak Pinoy Strategy Perspective Abstract: This discussion paper examines the emerging Pax Silica initiative from the perspective of the Philippine Tatak Pinoy Strategy (TPS) and associated consultations involving the semiconductor, electronics, and IT-BPM sectors. It argues that the developmental significance of Philippine participation will depend less on investment attraction alone than on whether the country can progressively deepen domestic technological, engineering, and organizational capabilities within emerging semiconductor and AI-related ecosystems. Drawing from stakeholder consultations and comparative industrial-policy literature, the paper identifies fragmented institutional support systems, weak cross-agency coordination, financing constraints, workforce mismatches, and discontinuities in government-industry collaboration as major barriers to industrial upgrading. At the same time, the consultations also point to the gradual expansion of higher-value capabilities in engineering services, cloud systems, cybersecurity, analytics, industrial software, and advanced digital operations. The paper argues that semiconductor and AI-related industries are substantially more coordination-intensive than earlier generations of export manufacturing. Long-term competitiveness increasingly depends on workforce systems, applied research capability, supplier development, financing systems, digital infrastructure, and sustained institutional coordination across firms, universities, industry organizations, and government agencies. From this perspective, Pax Silica should be approached not simply as an investment-attraction initiative, but as a potential platform for long-term capability deepening, ecosystem integration, and institutional learning. Length: 21 pages Creation-Date: 2026-06 Publication-Status: Published as UPSE Discussion Paper No. 2026-06, June 2026 File-URL: https://pre.econ.upd.edu.ph/upsedp/index.php/dp/article/view/1573 File-Format: Application/pdf Number: 202606 Classification-JEL: O14, O25, O38, L52, F63, O53 Keywords: industrial upgrading; semiconductor ecosystems; artificial intelligence; Tatak Pinoy Strategy; capability deepening; institutional coordination; industrial policy; Philippines Handle: RePEc:phs:dpaper:202606 Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: E. Annette Balaoing-Pelkmans Author-Name-First: E. Annette Author-Name-Last: Balaoing-Pelkmans Author-Workplace-Name: School of Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman Title: The Paradox of Arrival: Philippine Upper-Middle Income Reclassification and the Unfinished Structural Transformation Abstract: Length: 22 pages Creation-Date: 2026-07 Publication-Status: Published as UPSE Discussion Paper No. 2026-07, July 2026 File-URL: https://pre.econ.upd.edu.ph/upsedp/index.php/dp/article/view/1574 File-Format: Application/pdf Number: 202607 Classification-JEL: O14, O25, O53, F22, J24 Keywords: Philippines; upper-middle income; structural transformation; OFW; industrial policy; middle-income trap; premature deindustrialization; Tatak Pinoy Strategy Handle: RePEc:phs:dpaper:202607 Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Adolfo Jose Montesa Author-Name-First: Adolfo Jose Author-Name-Last: Montesa Author-Workplace-Name: School of Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman Author-Name: Vincent Ramos Author-Name-First: Vincent Author-Name-Last: Ramos Author-Workplace-Name: School of Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman & Heidelberg University Author-Name: Judy Padillon Author-Name-First: Judy Author-Name-Last: Padillon Author-Workplace-Name: School of Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman Author-Name: Carlos Harry De Taza Author-Name-First: Carlos Harry Author-Name-Last: De Taza Author-Workplace-Name: School of Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman Author-Name: Edgar Suguitan Author-Name-First: Edgar Author-Name-Last: Suguitan Author-Workplace-Name: School of Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman Author-Name: Rexian Irlandez Author-Name-First: Rexian Author-Name-Last: Irlandez Author-Workplace-Name: School of Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman Title: Minimum Wages in the Philippines: Stylized Facts, Identification and Estimation Challenges, and a Path Forward Abstract: Since 1989, minimum wages in the Philippines have been set by regional tripartite wage boards, producing a patchwork of statutory floors whose levels, timing, and bite vary across the country. This article presents novel descriptive patterns of minimum wages, price levels, and employment using pooled Labor Force Survey microdata and the Occupational Wages Survey. We foreground three key findings. First, the real value of the minimum wage has been eroded by inflation since 1989 across all regions except NCR. Second, the minimum wage has a high bite of up to 1.2 times the median wage of the covered sector. This arguably reflects both a highly compressed wage distribution and the presence of exemption channels for smaller enterprises. Finally, in quarters succeeding wage orders, we find a reallocation pattern to wage bins just above the new wage floor, with no conclusive evidence of any immediate large-scale “displacement” of employment. Reflecting on these patterns, we lay out why unbiased estimates of employment effects remain challenging in the Philippine context and how a more holistic analysis of wage setting is complicated by the lack of transparency in and predictability of the existing wage-setting regime. We close with proposals for the path forward. Length: 34 pages Creation-Date: 2026-08 Publication-Status: Published as UPSE Discussion Paper No. 2026-08, August 2026 File-URL: https://pre.econ.upd.edu.ph/upsedp/index.php/dp/article/view/1575 File-Format: Application/pdf Number: 202608 Classification-JEL: J31, J08 Keywords: minimum wages; stacked event-study design; reallocation; Philippines Handle: RePEc:phs:dpaper:202608