TU STUDENTS INVITED TO PARTICIPATE IN FREE 30 SEPTEMBER ZOOM WEBINAR ON THE PHILIPPINE ECONOMY AFTER COVID

Thammasat University students interested in ASEAN studies, The Philippines, economics, allied health sciences, international relations, and related subjects may find it useful to participate in a free 30 September Zoom webinar on The Philippine Economy after COVID: Poor Development Prospects amid Continuing Governance Problems.

The event, on Monday, 30 September 2024 at 9am Bangkok time, is presented by ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore.

The TU Library collection includes some books about different aspects of the Philippine economy.

Students are welcome to register for the event at this link:

https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/6117255274357/WN_c-TnP7UCS42w5hfmkLeHTQ#/registration

The event website explains:

About the Webinar

The Philippines faces daunting economic challenges in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Apart from an anemic economic recovery, the Philippines has had to grapple with a drastic spike of inflation in 2022-2023, persistently high underemployment, and slow structural transformation. Moreover, the growth and development agenda has been hampered by misplaced priorities on the part of the government (like underinvestment in human capital and overinvestment in car-centric infrastructure) as well as long-standing governance issues such as weak rule of law and chronic corruption.

About the Speaker

Dr. J.C. Punongbayan is an Assistant Professor at the University of the Philippines School of Economics (UPSE). […]

About the Discussant

Professor Hal Hill is the H.W. Arndt Professor Emeritus of the Southeast Asian Economies at the Crawford School, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University. […]

The TU Library collection includes several books by Professor Hill.

In 2021, Professor Hill coauthored Philippine economic development, looking backwards and forward: An interpretative essay.

The article’s abstract:

Over the past decade, the Philippine development story has attracted international attention as it transformed from being the “Sick Man of Asia” to “Asia’s Rising Tiger”. However, the country’s strong growth momentum was abruptly interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to cast a huge shadow over its development outlook. With the country now at the crossroads, this paper reflects on and draws lessons for economic development and policy by examining the country’s three main economic episodes over the post-independence era: (a) the period of moderately strong growth from 1946 to the late 1970s, (b) the tumultuous crisis years from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, and (c) the period from the early 1990s to the 2019 when it rejoined the dynamic East Asian mainstream. Through comparative analysis, the paper also seeks to understand the country’s development dynamics and political economy. We conclude by highlighting elements of a recovery and reform agenda in the post-pandemic era.

The article’s Introduction begins:

The Philippine economy has often been characterized as a laggard, an “East Asian exception”, and a “Latin American economy in East Asia”. The forward-looking Asian Development Bank (ADB) publication, Asia 2050, classifies the country with the region’s slower growing economies, including Afghanistan, Nepal, Myanmar and North Korea. But as the eminent Filipino economist Felipe Medalla has observed, the Philippines is an “average” economy, in the sense that its long-term economic performance is similar to the global average. Over the period 1960–2018, for example, the country’s per capita gross domestic product (GDP) in real terms rose 2.9 times, exactly the same as that for the world as a whole. In other words, it is its deviation from the record of some very dynamic Asian economies that is distinctive; in global terms, its performance is not unusual. Importantly, these averages conceal a great deal of variation over time. Most countries have episodes of faster and slower growth, booms and busts. This is certainly the case for the post-independence Philippine economy. In fact, in this paper we argue that three more or less distinct periods are observable. Although the periods are not precise, they are approximately: 1. From independence (1946) to the late 1970s: high initial expectations, slowing growth 2. From the late 1970s to the early 1990s: growing into a deep and extended crisis 3. From the early 1990s to 2019: recovery, rejoining the East Asian economic mainstream To these may now be added the current period, 2020–21, of the COVID-19 pandemic-induced health and economic crisis, which introduces a sharp discontinuity into our analysis. There are therefore periods of both modest and quite strong economic growth, together with two major crisis episodes—the macroeconomic and political crisis of 1984–86 and its aftermath, and the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020–21. Note also that the three main economic episodes correspond loosely, but not exactly, to the country’s political periods—that is, the democratic eras of 1946–72 and after 1986, and the authoritarian era of 1972–86, of Martial Law and its aftermath.

It is instructive to examine these episodes and draw inferences from them. Economic development is rarely a smooth, continuous, linear process. Episodes help us understand a country’s development dynamics and political economy. They also have implications for development economics in general. Of particular interest is the light they shed on the fundamental drivers of economic development, and how countries manage and respond to shocks, both internal and external. In addition, major crises are a special category deserving attention: their origins, the immediate domestic response, and the longer-term recovery trajectory. We commence with a comparative survey of economic performance in section 2. We then provide an analytical summary of each of the three pre-COVID episodes, briefly as it is well-traversed territory (sections 3–5). Section 6 extends the discussion of the stronger growth momentum by examining the drivers of growth, in particular the rising importance of service exports, in contrast to the sluggish performance of export-oriented manufacturing. Section 7 examines the current COVID-19 pandemic, its socio-economic impacts and the government’s response to it. This most recent episode, which is still unfolding as we write, also provides an opportunity to assess the country’s resilience in the face of the most serious shock to the peacetime global economy in 90 years. Section 8 outlines elements of the post-COVID reform agenda, which, we argue, will need to be addressed if the strong development momentum of the past decade is to be regained. Section 9 sums up and draws out some broader implications for the country’s growth dynamics and future trajectories. Wherever possible, we conduct the analysis in comparative context, using as the (high) benchmark the country’s dynamic middle-income neighbours. Although the Philippines’ economic performance has lagged behind its neighbours for extended periods, our conclusions are nevertheless cautiously optimistic. We argue that policymakers—and the community at large—have learnt from earlier development missteps and reformed. To be sure, the reform process has been slow, incremental and partial. But at least until the COVID-19 crisis, we highlight several significant reform achievements. This crisis presents perhaps the biggest test yet of the ongoing validity of this proposition. Its impact has been very severe, and the authorities have struggled to develop a coherent and effective management strategy. […]

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)