Browsing by Author "Epetia, Ma. Christina F."

Now showing 1 - 12 of 12
  • ItemRestricted
    A study on determining the presence of workplace discrimination against the Filipino LGBT youth
    (2019-12) Jimenez, Christian Eligius A.; Epetia, Ma. Christina F.
    Despite the increasing influence of the LGBT community in the economy, anecdotal evidence shows that discrimination based on their gender orientation still exists. We employ a logit regressions model to test the presence of workplace discrimination among the LGBT youth in the Philippines. Two indicators of discrimination are used in the study: income as an objective measure and self-reported workplace discrimination as a subjective measure. In contrast to anecdotal evidence, we find that discrimination based on gender orientation is insignificant in determining difference in income and the feeling of being discriminated in the workplace. Further analysis of the individual data provides other factors such as gender at birth, employment status, region, urban classification of the area of the respondent, and disability are significantly related to the two indicators of discrimination in the workplace. The significance of this study is to provide empirical analysis on the economic standing of Filipino LGBTs relative to their heterosexual counterparts, offering inputs to the policy agenda of inclusiveness and non-discrimination in the country.
  • ItemRestricted
    A study on the effects of health insurance coverage on the vaccination status of children aged 12 to 32 months
    (2019-12-10) Girasol, Precious Zion D. ; Parayno, Bernice Maria Gwynette A. ; Epetia, Ma. Christina F.
    This paper identifies the significant factors that affect maternal vaccination decision and children’s vaccination status with particular emphasis on health insurance coverage. The researchers arranged cross sectional data from 1,628 households consisting of children aged 12 to 23 months with mothers from the corresponding households in the Philippines in 2017. Multinomial logistic regression is used in order to reveal the relationship between various variables and vaccination status of the child. Stepwise analysis is used to track any significant changes in the results given additional set of parameters grouped by household characteristics, maternal information, and child information. The results demonstrated that public health insurance is positively associated with full vaccination status; and private insurance is negatively associated on the other hand. With this, public health insurance must widen their provision of vaccination coverage to encourage the completion of all age-appropriate basic vaccines. Other striking predictors of getting fully vaccinated are wealth index, educational attainment of the mother, and her exposure to media. Results affirm that both health insurance coverage and maternal characteristics have a great impact on the vaccination status of the child; thus, public and private health care facilities must prioritize mothers with socio-economic barriers and concerns to be able to address the vaccination coverage of children.
  • ItemRestricted
    An assesment of the relationship between sustainability reporting and firm profitability of publicly listed companies in the Philippines
    (2019-12) Angue, Krischelle Marie M. ; Castillo, Gianne Ina D. ; Epetia, Ma. Christina F.
    This study aims to examine the impact of sustainability reporting on firm profitability in the Philippines. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to analyze the data of 194 publicly-listed companies (PLCs) that have submitted sustainability reports in the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE). In this study, firm profitability is the dependent variable, and it was measured by net profit margin (NPM), return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE). Meanwhile, sustainability reporting is the independent variable. The results reveal a statistically significant and negative relationship between sustainability reporting and firm profitability (through net profit margin and return on assets) in the short term. No significant relationship is found between sustainability reporting and return on equity. The results imply that it is not profitable for a PLC to publish sustainability reports.
  • ItemRestricted
    Are all bubbles bad? an analysis on the effect of the NBA bubble on the free throw performance of NBA players
    (2020-12-22) Artadi, Emilio Santiago R.; Quimbo, Mario Romulo A.; Epetia, Ma. Christina F.
    Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many industries were shut down, and the professional sports league industry was not spared. In order to continue the season, the NBA Bubble was created where players would be completing the remainder of the season in an isolation zone, barring non-essential constituents (such as fans) from entering the grounds, ensuring the safety of those within the bubble. The new setup is speculated to have affected the play of many professional players because of changes in performance pressure, particularly through the negation of the home-court advantage due to the absence of crowd pressure, stadium familiarity advantages, and travel fatigue. With this, the researchers’ study aims to identify the effects of the NBA Bubble on individual player performance through free throw shot percentage. Using logit, the researchers were able to conclude that, compared to the normal NBA setup, individual player performance increased, with free throws being made significantly higher inside the NBA Bubble. Lastly, the researchers recommend that to extend this study by examining the effect of crowd-less play in different sports, through an analysis of other professional sports league bubbles.
  • ItemRestricted
    Are exchange rates more volatile with greater uncertainty? Evidence from the php/usd exchange rate using GARCH-MIDAS models
    (2021-01-21) Abreu, Marvin Kyle M.; Epetia, Ma. Christina F.
    This study explores the relationship between policy-related economic uncertainty and the volatility of the PHP/USD exchange rate returns. The study uses data constructed from Google Trends to measure uncertainty and employs GARCH-MIDAS models to differentiate the short- run and long-run components of exchange rate volatility. The results reveal that more policy-related economic uncertainty leads to decreased volatility in the long run, with uncertainty in the US having a greater effect than uncertainty in the Philippines. The counter intuitive outcomes may spring from the fact that uncertainty relates to the search for more information, which may exhibit a long-memory process where economic agents form beliefs that lead them to risk aversion. This study also separates market-related uncertainty from policy-related uncertainty using a regression method, where results show that market-related uncertainty does not significantly affect exchange rate volatility in the long run.
  • ItemRestricted
    Clicking bribes away: the role of e-government in the fight against corruption
    (2006-03) Epetia, Ma. Christina F.; Yabut, Jonathan Allen S.; Alburo, Florian
    Among the most vicious and rampant problems of public governance worldwide, corruption seems to top the list both on accounts of history and magnitude of effects on the economy. With the abundance of literature covering the causes and consequences of corruption, this paper concentrates on what can be done to fight it by stressing the revolutionary role of e-government in the age of information technology. The authors empirically conclude that higher levels of e-government lead to lower levels of corruption, surveying across 50 countries across four years. The purpose of utilizing e- government to combat corruption is twofold: to increase the quantity and quality information circulating in the economy that fosters government transparency and political accountability, and to lessen opportunities for bribe charging by making transactions between the government and the citizen impersonal through the use of the Internet.
  • ItemRestricted
    College graduates in non-college jobs: measuring overeducation in the Philippine labor market
    (2018-07) Epetia, Ma. Christina F.; de Dios, Emmanuel S.
  • ItemRestricted
    Gender equality in numbers: the effects of gender composition on the performance of Philippine industries
    (2020-12-22) Aurelio, Juan Alberto B.; Syhongpan, Hazel D.; Epetia, Ma. Christina F.
    Much attention has been given to gender diversity following the concerns on women empowerment. With the surge of more support for gender equality in society, more laws and programs are brought up to balance the gender demographics. Progressive workforce have started to implement gender quotas in recent years to promote this idea, and more opportunities are being given to women, allowing for a more competitive labor market between genders. This results in more demo-graphical data on gender, and the effect of gender equality in the economical aspect can now be tested with statistics. This paper aims to contribute to the existing literature on the impact of gender composition to performance and expand it to the context of the Philippines and at industry-level measures. Using labor productivity and net profits as indicators of industry performance and categorical dummies for male- and female- dominating industries as the measure for gender composition, this study seeks to identify the relationship between the two. The random effects regression model is used on panel data containing 17 out of 21 sections of Philippine industries following the 2009 PSIC classification over the span of five years. The results show that there exists a negative relationship between gender-dominating industries and the industry performance indicators, implying that relatively gender-equal industries perform better and are therefore more profitable and productive. Further studies on gender- equal industries are recommended upon the availability of industry-level data in the Philippines.
  • ItemRestricted
    Is senior high school worth it? assessing the employability of senior high school graduates under the K to 12 basic education program
    (2019-12) Gondra, Zarah Aline V. ; Nepomuceno, Samantha Louise S. ; Epetia, Ma. Christina F.
    With the addition of two years in the K to 12 Basic Education Program, Senior High School (SHS) is seen as a path to better employment opportunities. The program is expected to produce more “globally competitive, employable and entrepreneurial” graduates as promised by the Department of Education. Furthermore, SHS graduates are also expected to be employed in at most “middle-skill jobs”. Our study aims to examine the current employability of SHS graduates, and the types of jobs acquired, using the data on the recent two batches of SHS graduates. We used probit and ordered probit for our regressions. Moreover, we also considered additional factors such as survey year, region, sex, age, area, and marriage that could affect the likelihood of employment of a graduate. Using Spence’s Signaling Theory (1973) our findings suggest that holding an SHS diploma is not an effective signal of employability and that it is the individual characteristics of the applicant that the employers pay more attention to when hiring. This implies that the program is not able to uphold its promise of better employment opportunities and “middle-skill” jobs for its first two batches of SHS graduates.
  • ItemRestricted
    The cost of what we cause: the impact of governance, democracy, and military expenditures on carbon dioxide and methane emissions
    (2020-12) Gonzales, Hanna Almirah; Liberato, Aleiza Karrina B.; Epetia, Ma. Christina F.
    With the deterioration of the quality of the environment, most policymakers include controlling pollution, caused by the escalating greenhouse gas emissions, in their agenda. However, the success of these policies is determined by the resulting quality of a country’s set of institutions. Therefore, this paper aims to: (1) understand the relationship between the quality of institutions and environmental quality through analyzing whether better institutional quality enhances environmental conditions and (2) recognize the implication of this relationship in the success of environmental policies, specifically the Kyoto Protocol. The estimation of this relationship is conducted through the fixed effects model by using a panel dataset composed of annual data on carbon dioxide and methane emissions, governance, military expenditure, democracy score, and relevant control variables such as GNI, value-added in agriculture, and urban population growth for the period of 1996 until 2016. The results indicate a negative and significant relationship between the quality of government institutions and environmental conditions which implies that higher government effectiveness decreases carbon dioxide and methane emissions. Additionally, the results confirm that democratic and anocratic countries have higher carbon dioxide and methane emissions than those in autocratic countries. Finally, the results signify that an increase in military expenditures produces fewer methane emissions, while an insignificant outcome for its effect on carbon dioxide emissions. Therefore, it is vital to re-evaluate the role and effectiveness of institutions and take them into account, particularly when creating and implementing policies, in order to successfully mitigate carbon dioxide and methane emissions
  • ItemRestricted
    The first-year analysis of the K-12 program using the UPCAT scores and UPG as a determinant for academic performance
    (2019-12) Bass, David Franco B. ; Quimbo, Philippe Joseph ; Epetia, Ma. Christina F.
    On May 15, 2013, President Benigno Aquino III approved Republic Act (RA) 10533 which states that the K-12 Curriculum will be implemented in the Philippines. Official Gazette (2016) quoted past president Benigno S. Aquino III when he said that the K-12 program will be the main strategy to invest into the country’s greatest treasure - the Filipinos. As this moment happened in the country, we ask ourselves this basic question, “What is the use of the K to 12 curriculum in our lives?” The K-12 program covers kindergarten and twelve years of basic education. The twelve years is divided into six years of primary schooling, four years of junior high school and two years of senior high school. Official Gazette (2016) states that with the additional two years, the program aims to provide six salient features: 1) strengthening early childhood education, 2) making the curriculum relevant to learners, 3) ensuring integrated and seamless learning, 4) building proficiency through language, 5) gearing up for the future and 6) nurturing the holistically developed Filipino. This curriculum hopes to prepare graduates to acquire mid-level skills that will provide them more opportunities in the job market even without a college degree. Office of the Political Adviser (2015) mentioned former Education Secretary Armin Luistro when he said that “The K to 12 programs would like to ensure that even if they don’t choose to go to college, they finish what is basic.” In the current educational context of the Philippines, enrollment for college decreased after the K-12 program was implemented because of the promise of having better opportunities in the job market right after grade 12. The Commission on Higher Education (2018) recorded those 26.9 million students enrolled in both public and private tertiary education which is lower than the expected 27.5 million college students after the launch of the K-12 program. However, Jobstreet (2018) reported that only 24 percent of employers were willing to hire K-12 graduates as the rest still wanted employees with college degrees in their companies. 7 In 2018, an advocacy group called the Philippine Business for Education (PBED) found a few red flags from the implementation of the K-12 program in the country. Hernando-Malipat and Guevara (2019) said that early childhood comprehension remains poor as more than a third of Filipino children in kindergarten scored zero in both reading and listening. They also saw that achievement scores for both elementary and secondary levels have also stalled at 59 percent, which is well below the expected national target of 77 percent. Given this anecdotal evidence, it is deemed significant for the researchers to analyze if the same outcome can be observed among K-12 graduates that chose to study at the college level. Having an additional two years should have given students the opportunity to have better knowledge on subjects that are labeled as college-level standard like calculus and statistics. With all the promises of the government to further enhance the Philippine education system and make it more competitive relative to other countries, has the K-12 program significantly improved the academic performance of the covered students? The study used the 2015 and 2017 application forms and exam scores of the University of the Philippines College Admission Test (UPCAT) from the University of the Philippines Office of Admissions (UPOA). OLS regression was then applied to the analysis to determine the relationship between the K-12 program and academic performance of students. The researchers concluded that the K-12 program has no effect in improving the academic ability of the students. Further analyzing the effect of the new program, each subject of the UPCAT was also examined individually and students who graduated from the K-12 curriculum obtained lower scores in science, mathematics, language proficiency and reading comprehension compared to the scores of students who graduated from the old basic education curriculum.
  • ItemRestricted
    The health of nations: How rule of law and democracy influence COVID-19 response strategies
    (2021) Basbas, Alyanna Marie G.; Morales, Lilian Felina I.; Epetia, Ma. Christina F.
    To control the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, governments around the world have implemented three broad classes of country-level control measures: containment and closure measures, economic measures, and health system approaches. The cumulation of the aforementioned policy decisions determines the stringency of a country’s COVID-19 response. This paper aims to ascertain the political determinants of response stringency. We conduct ordinary least squares (OLS) and Logistic (logit) regressions to illustrate the association between a country’s rule of law performance, level of democracy, and the stringency of its COVID-19 response. Our findings suggest that COVID-19 response stringency decreases with the adherence to the rule of law and increases with the level of democracy. Hence, this study presents implications for the role of institutional trust and the culture of individualism in policy decisions amidst public health crises.