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Item Restricted Food insecurity and coping mechanism in the Philippines during the COVID-19 pandemic(2024-01-15) Natividad, Maritess Sophia C.; Pamintuan, Zyrille Jade O.; Pernia, Ernesto M.Food insecurity is a problem faced by countries all over the world. In the Philippines, more than half of the population is categorized as food insecure and the lockdowns which financially and physically constrained households from accessing food has severely affected the levels of food insecurity within the country during the COVID-19 pandemic. The lockdowns have made households exhaust all means possible so that they could obtain food. Different households would have different coping mechanisms in the face of food shortage. Such coping mechanisms can be to modify food consumption or to protect food consumption. Using the probit and multinomial regression models show the pivotal role of job retention, online selling ventures, government assistance, responsible credit use, and promotion of insurance coverage in alleviating food insecurity of households.Item Restricted The impact of COVID-19 on the decomposition of teleworkability-based wage differentials among Philippine occupations(2023-07) Panganiban, Hustine Angelo B.; Celestino, Queenie Angel C.; Jandoc, Karl Robert L.With reduced mobility and restrictions on physical activities brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, teleworking, defined as work performed away from the employer through information and communication technology, emerged as an alternative setup for many industries. Using Philippine Labor Force Survey data from 2019 and 2020, this study aims to measure the pandemic-induced wage inequality between teleworkable and non-teleworkable occupations. Furthermore, we employ the Kitagawa-Oaxaca-Blinder Decomposition, a three-component method that decomposes wage differentials between the two groups and across time. Our findings show that teleworkability-based wage differentials increased during the second and third quarters of 2020, at the height of the lockdown measures imposed by the Philippine government. Wage differentials in 2020 were primarily influenced by the differences in the effects of explanatory variables or group characteristics of teleworkers and non-teleworkers, implying that wage discrimination against non- teleworkers worsened during the pandemic.Item Restricted Inflationary impact of COVID-19: an analysis on different commodity groups in the Philippines(2022-06) Cendaña, Mary Anne Clarisse R.; Vasquez, Geremee Cayle Z; Alburo, Florian A.The COVID-19 pandemic induced disruptions in global value chains and domestic supply chains, decreased business profits, and slowed economic growth that brought changes in demand and supply. Given supply bottlenecks and consumption shifts that differ across the different Philippine regions due to the varying severity of local cases, this paper studies the movements and differences in prices across commodity groups during the COVID-19 pandemic. Two regression models were developed using the average monthly cases of COVID-19 and inflation rates from March 2020 to December 2021 to determine the effects, namely: (1) Baseline and (2) Regional Factor Model. The results show that only 6 out of 13 commodity groups have their prices exert a significant relationship with the number of COVID-19 cases. Among the essential commodities, only food reveals a highly significant negative relationship, while among the non-essential items, only alcoholic beverages exhibit a strong negative correlation with the number of cases. Further, price movements for all items and transport are found to be negatively associated with the number of cases, while clothing and furnishings exhibit a positive relationship. Lastly, only 8.1% of the coefficients prove to have significant inflation disparities with the National Capital Region (NCR). This study recommends using one single estimator for more significant results, using other measures of inflation and exploring other pandemic indicators such as vaccination, mortality, and recovery rates.Item Restricted Effect of the pandemic-induced shift to teleworking on worker-level wage and hours worked(2022-01) Floro, Nicarae Valerie; Panagsagan, Ruth A.; Jandoc, Karl Robert L.This study examines the effect of the pandemic-induced shift to teleworking on worker-level wage and hours worked in the Philippines. Data from the October 2019 round and October 2020 round of the Philippine Labor Force Survey (LFS) were used in order to compare pre-pandemic to pandemic figures. Specifically, this study aims to look at the relationship between an occupation’s teleworkability score and the change in its workers’ wages and hours worked by performing an Ordinary Least Squares regression analysis. This paper finds that higher teleworkability of an occupation is associated with lower wages and greater weekly work hours during the pandemic. The reduction in wages may be explained by lower productivity, flexible time arrangements and initial costs of implementing ICTs for telework which vary across countries. Meanwhile, the increase in weekly work hours implies the blurring of work-life boundaries and difficulty in adjusting to new technological tools among workers in high teleworkable occupations.Item Restricted The impact of COVID-19, lockdowns, and vaccines on the Philippine stock market(2022-02) Sañga, Michael Harvey J.; Songsong, Julian P.; Mendoza, Adrian R.This paper examines the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on stock returns and stock volatility of firms listed in the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE). We apply fixed effects panel data regression to analyze the impacts of the growth rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths as well as the different levels of lockdowns on stock returns. As an extended analysis, we incorporate the growth rate of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered as a control for pharmaceutical intervention. We also estimate the impacts of COVID-19 on stock returns at the sectoral level. The study covered the period January 30, 2020 to September 15, 2021. The results show that the growth rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths have negative effects on stock returns, while the lockdowns in general positively impact stock returns when not controlling for vaccine administration. The results also show that the growth rates of COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths increase stock volatility and that stricter lockdowns decrease volatility in the presence of effective pharmaceutical interventions.Item Restricted The degree of an industry's work-from-home arrangement and its effect on industrial gross value added and labor productivity(2020-12) Cuenco, Juan Gabriel L.; Fontanilla, Kyle Marcus J.; Epetia, Ma. Christina F.Due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the government has introduced social distancing policies to prevent the spread of the said virus. While it helps prevent further infection, it has affected the economy to the point of a recession. Social distancing has limited the work people are allowed to do because some industries have occupations that require face-to-face interaction and general physical activities. As a result, industries are adopting a work-from-home (WFH) set-up. However, there are some industries that have a higher tendency to have a WFH set-up compared to others. The researchers used industry level data provided by Dingel and Neiman [2020] to determine the share of jobs which can be conducted at home per industry then assigned a high or low degree of WFH for each industry based on the share of jobs. Data on industries’ economic performance, namely growth of labor productivity and gross value added, were used to measure how industries performed during the pandemic. These data were separated using time period dummy variables which distinguish pandemic period data of an industry from pre-pandemic data. Through panel regression analysis, the researchers studied how the economic performance of industries with a high degree has fared during the pandemic period compared to industries with a low degree of WFH. The results showed that although overall economic performance decreased during the pandemic period, a high degree of WFH has helped mitigate the negative effects of the pandemic on the growth of labor productivity and gross value added.Item Restricted Assessing changes in outside food consumption behavior of Filipino households before and after COVID-19(2025-05-30) David, Samantha Anne C.; Prieto, Samantha A.Examining 2018 and 2023 time periods from FIES-LFS, this study assesses the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the outside food consumption behavior of Filipinos to know whether there has been a shift in households’ post-pandemic outside food consumption behavior. This study aims to provide policy insights on the underlying issues faced in the post-pandemic period by examining how the demand for outside food has changed over time, which may guide government policy and program in enhancing food systems by coordinating changing consumer demand with existing supply capacities in the food industry. The results of the best regression model’s marginal effects are grounded in the economic concept related to Becker’s Household Production Theory which reflects the trade-off between home and outside food consumption, especially given the constraints brought by the pandemic. Due to the significant number of households reporting zero outside food expenditure which could lead to potential selection bias in the econometric model, the Two-Step Heckman Model was used which allowed for this to be corrected. The study shows that dining out participation and outside food spending remains to be lower than pre-pandemic levels wherein it is largely influenced by income, region, urbanization, household size, age, and employment status. This deviates from pre-pandemic trends possibly driven by rising costs of food and continued vulnerabilities in the economic system. The most affected groups are lower-income households, those in less urbanized areas, larger households and older age groups, and unemployed individuals as shown by reduced participation and limited flexibility in adjusting expenditure patterns. The results of this study revealed temporary divergence from previous patterns in other studies which found an increasing trend of outside food participation and spending during the pre-pandemic, considering that this study’s economic model highlighted estimates of post-pandemic impacts and targeted specific time periods marked by uncertainties that may have influenced shifts in household behavior. This highlights the need for targeted interventions that support vulnerable groups through responsive fiscal and pricing policies that are able to cater to changing food practices, especially during events that bring economic shocks such as the pandemic.