Author Description

This study analyses the structural causes of macroeconomic instability, which has been the bane of the Philippines over the past two and a half decades. Structural factors also explain why, despite the similarity in various areas of economic policies, the Philippines was systematically outperformed by many of its East Asian neighbours. The central argument is that the segmented and oligopolistic financial and commodity markets, large income inequalities, and diverging savings and investment behaviour of public and private sector agents are the structural and institutional features underlying the persistent macroeconomic imbalances. Several quantitative techniques are applied including a Macroeconomic Social Accounting Framework (MASF) and Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) modelling.