Social Health Insurance for the Poor Programs of the Philippines and Vietnam

This paper compares the design features and implementation of the social health insurance (SHI) for the poor programs of the Philippines and Vietnam. The National Health Insurance Program-Sponsored Program of the Philippines and the Health Care Fund for the Poor Program of Vietnam both intend to improve the health status and, ultimately, the economic condition of the poor population. Following the framework of Carrin and James (2004), these programs are evaluated in terms of revenue collection, risk pooling, and purchasing for the period 1996-2005. As the experiences of these countries show, the traditional approaches to provider payments and quality control have only weak incentive effects on performance under a decentralized health setting. It is argued that more attention should be given to such institutional context in the design of SHI programs.health insurance, National Health Insurance Program, social health insurance

Introduction

This special issue of the Philippine Journal of Development (PJD) is dedicated to Professor Alejandro N. Herrin in recognition of his numerous contributions to research and policy in population, social services, and development in the Philippines and other countries, and his mentoring of a generation of scholars and policy practitioners in these areas. While the topics of the papers were independently chosen by the contributors, they reflect the wide range of issues of interest to Dr. Herrin.social services, population, development

Introduction

This special issue of the Philippine Journal of Development (PJD) is dedicated to Professor Alejandro N. Herrin in recognition of his numerous contributions to research and policy in population, social services, and development in the Philippines and other countries, and his mentoring of a generation of scholars and policy practitioners in these areas. While the topics of the papers were independently chosen by the contributors, they reflect the wide range of issues of interest to Dr. Herrin.social services, population, development

Natural disasters and local government finance : evidence from Typhoon Haiyan

This paper examines how natural disasters affect local public finances and their interplay with intergovernmental transfers and external resources. Exploiting the randomized nature of the 2013 Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most devastating natural disasters in recent history, we document its causal effect on the local government fiscal dynamics. Combining data on local government finance with reports on the level of damages and using difference-in-differences with instrumental variable to analyze the data, we show that local public revenue and expenditures remain largely unaffected, except for debt payments. However, we find important heterogeneity in local revenue responses: poorer municipalities raised comparatively lower revenue in the aftermath of the Typhoon. We also provide evidence that external funding did not lead to lower tax collection efforts, but instead leads to higher local expenditures, suggesting that disaster aid does not cause a moral hazard problem in local governments' spending decisions

Spatial development and the law of one price : Evidence of convergence of land values

Many developing countries exhibit imbalanced spatial development, but corrective policies are hampered by lack of adequate sub-regional development data. Building on the insights of the factor price equalization theorem and by applying measures of spatial autocorrelation on land values, patterns of local development and linkages in the Philippines are traced. Evidence of convergence in provincial and urban land values is found in 1986-2000, although the clustering is more local than global. Thus, greater infrastructure investments and use of land values by local governments as policy guides should be made to facilitate in-country trade and migration, and to disperse growth.Spatial development, land values, convergence, Philippines

Leadership and Innovation under Decentralization : A Case Study of Selected Local Governments in the Philippines

This study investigates the importance of leadership as a driver of local government innovations. Based on a survey of 209 innovations introduced in selected 48 local governments in the Philippines during the period June 2004-June 2008, the observable qualities and possible incentives of incumbent mayors are linked empirically with their reported number of innovations. The Poisson regression results show that the statistically relevant incumbent’s characteristics are age, educational attainment, and experience in the public sector, re-election status and terms in office, controlling for other factors. Also, the fiscal capacity of the local government and the poverty status of the local population are found statistically significant. However, all these factors vary in relative importance across types of innovations. Several policy inputs are suggested to hone the leadership qualities of incumbent mayors for greater adoption of innovations.Incumbent leaders, local government innovations, Philippines

A Service of zbw What differences can performance ratings make? Difference-in-difference estimates of impact on local government responsiveness in the Philippines What difference can performance ratings make? Difference-in-difference estimates of impact o

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in Abstract In many countries that have decentralized, improving the accountability of local officials is increasingly emphasized to make them more responsive to their constituents' needs. This paper provides evidence that the public announcement of performance ratings can induce local governments to become responsive. The evidence is based on application of a difference-in-difference method on a unique household-level dataset collected during the three-year pilot test of a rating system in 12 municipalities and cities in the Philippines. The results are consistent with the predictions of political agency models of incumbent behavior. Some policy guidelines on the design and implementation performance benchmarks are made. JEL Codes: H11, H30, H77, C9