Database for Development Economics Research:
Philippines

Philippine Statistics Authority’s Data Catalog: Examples of surveys conducted by the PSA include Census of Population, Family Income and Expenditure Survey, National Demographic and Health Survey, Crops Production Survey, Labor Turnover Survey, Agricultural Wage Rate Survey, Quarterly Survey of Philippine Business and Industry, Annual Poverty Indicators Survey.
Type: Household & firm data, Access: Application required, Cost: Free (raw data) or with fee (tabulations needed)

UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) Survey: MICS is a survey with focus on the wellbeing of women and children but also includes development variables. The data include household characteristics, housing characteristics and living environment (drinking water, sanitation facilities), access to electricity and internet, assets (TV, radio, telephone, computer), reproductive and maternal health (adolescent birth, miscarriage, contraception, HIV, etc.), child health, nutrition, and development (breastfeeding, immunization, diet, literacy, etc.), household violence and exploitation, and social transfers. For the Philippines, data from MICS1 (1996) and MICS2 (1999) are available.
Type: Household data, Access: Application required, Cost: Free

World Bank Global Findex Database: Datasets with focus on financial access and financial service usage. In 2017, almost 150,000 people were surveyed (approximately 1,000 from each of 144 countries). Data include individual’s characteristics and financial behavior (ownership and/or usage) on credit card, debit card, borrowing account, deposit account, mobile and online financial services, and payments and remittances. For the Philippines, data from 2011, 2014, and 2017 are available.
Type: Household data, Access: Application required (2011, 2014, and 2017), Cost: Free

Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey: Household-level: A panel study on intergenerational health and its outcomes in Cebu. The study surveyed women who gave birth between May 1, 1983, and April 30, 1984 and also conducted follow-up surveys on the women and the children every 3 – 4 years.
Type: Household data, Access Downloadable without registration (UNC Dataverse), Cost: Free

World Bank Enterprise Surveys: Enterprise Surveys launched by the World Bank offer an expansive array of economic data on 171,000 firms in 149 countries. The surveys collect information about a country's business environment, how it is experienced by individual firms, how it changes over time, and the various constraints to firm performance and growth. The full data sets are available at the firm level. For the Philippines, data from the Enterprise Survey (2009, 2015) and Investment Climate Survey (2003) are available.
Type: Firm data, Access: Application required, Cost: Free

World Bank Integrating Sanitation Programming in the Pantawid Pamilya Program 2015-2018, Impact Evaluation: The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) is a governmental conditional cash transfer program aiming at the poorest of the poor. The survey is conducted to measure the effectiveness of the program on improved sanitation facilities. Type: Household-level, Access: Application required, Cost: Free

World Bank STEP Skills Measurement Household Survey 2015-2016: The STEP (Skills Toward Employment and Productivity) Skills Measurement program aims to generate internationally comparable data on skills available in developing countries. Data collected include measures of cognitive skills, socio-emotional skills, and job-specific skills.
Type: Household-level, Access: Application required, Cost: Free

World Bank Impact of Incentives and Information on Quality and Utilization in Primary Care 2014, Baseline Survey: The World Bank and the Impact Evaluation Lab of the Korean Development Institute School conducted a randomized evaluation and collected data on supplementary interventions to the Primary Care Benefit 1 (PCB1) package by Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) to improve the delivery of the program. PCB1 aims to improve the utilization of the outpatient package as well as the quality and efficiency of health services by changing the payment mechanism.
Type: Local government units-level, Access: Application required, Cost: Free

World Bank International Labor Migration 2010-2012, Baseline, Benchmark and Endline Surveys: The dataset is the replication data for "Unilateral Facilitation Does Not Raise International Migration from the Philippines" by Emily A. Beam, David McKenzie, and Dean Yang. The study used a randomized experiment to assess the impact of unilaterally facilitating international labor migration.
Type: Household-level, Access: Application required, Cost: Free

Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) Dataverse: The IPA engages in many research activities using randomized control trial (RCT) in the Philippines. The website provides replication datasets for such research. IPA researchers who do research in the Philippines include well-known economists such as Dean Karlan, Jonathan Zinman, and Xavier Giné.

• Randomizing Religion: The Impact of Protestant Evangelism on Economic Outcomes: Replication dataset for the study by Bryan, Choi, and Karlan (2020). The study randomized the inculcation of evangelical protestant Cristian values and theology education program to thousands of ultra-poor Filipino households. The outcomes include religiosity, income, total labor supply, consumption, food security, life satisfaction, and perceived relative economic status.

• Land Rights in Transition: Preliminary experimental evidence on how changes in formal tenure affect agricultural outcomes, perceptions, and decision-making in the Philippines: Replication dataset for the study by Castro-Zarzur et al. The study focuses on the intervention which subdivides the lands distributed in the form of collective titles under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

• Research for Effective Covid-19 Response (RECOVR): Philippines: Replication dataset for the study by Collins, Warren, and Parkerson (2020). The study uses data from a panel survey to study the impacts of COVID-19 on employment, income and food security, and identify how families are caring for and educating their children during extended school closures.

• Debt Traps? Market Vendors and Moneylender Debt in India and the Philippines: Replication dataset for the study by Karlan, Mullainathan, and Roth (2020). The article studies the behavior of those who recently emerge from debt traps by randomly paying off high-interest debt of individuals. The study finds that the treated individual returned to being indebted again.

• Group versus individual liability: Short and long term evidence from Philippine microcredit lending groups: Replication dataset for the study by Giné and Karlan (2017). The study randomizes two types of treatment to study the effects of group liability vs. individual liability. The first treatment randomly removes group liability from existing loans. The second treatment randomly assigns group or individual liability loans.

• Measuring Vote-Selling: Field Evidence from the Philippines: Replication dataset for the study by Hicken et al. (2017). The baseline survey of this study asked participants to rate each candidate. All participants are shown an anti-vote-selling video. Subsequently, two types of treatment (promise not to sell vote and promise to “vote your conscience”) are randomly assign. The post-election survey asks who participants voted for. Since vote-selling is not directly observed, the authors suggest using “vote-switching” as a proxy for vote-selling.

• Temptation in vote-selling: Evidence from a field experiment in the Philippines: Replication dataset for the study by Hicken et al. (2019). The study focuses on the effects of two anti-vote-selling strategies. The authors find that the treatment reduces vote-selling.

• Price and Control Elasticities of Demand for Savings: Replication dataset for the study by Karlan and Zinman (2017). The study attempts to estimate price elasticity of saving demand by randomizing interest rate offered.

• Microcredit in Theory and Practice: Using Randomized Credit Scoring for Impact Evaluation: Replication dataset for the study by Karlan and Zinman (2016). The study randomly assigns individual liability microloans (of $225 on average) to 1601 individuals in the Philippines through credit scoring. The outcomes which the study focuses on are net borrowing, number of business activities and employees, and subjective well-being.

• Follow the money not the cash: Comparing methods for identifying consumption and investment responses to a liquidity shock: Replication dataset for the study by Karlan, Osman, and Zinman (2019). The study attempts to measure short-run spending after microcredit borrowing (following the money). However, each spending measurement practice has its own set of challenges. This study addresses these challenges by comparing results from seven different methods.

• Put Your Money Where your Butt Is: A Commitment Contract for Smoking Cessation: Replication dataset for the study by Giné, Karlan, and Zinman (2014). The authors study the impacts of financial intervention on smoking cessation. The aforementioned financial intervention takes the form of savings accounts, of which the total funds will be returned if the holder of the account stops smoking.

• Tying Odysseus to the Mast: Evidence from a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines: Replication data for the study by Ashraf, Karlan, and Yin (2014). The study randomly offered commitment savings product (product which restricts access to the savings). The study finds that, after twelve months, average savings of the treatment group increased by 81 percentage points relative to the control group.

• The Impacts of Labeling Remittances on Migrants and Their Households in the Philippines: Replication data for the study by Yang and Arcangelis (2021). The article studies the impact of providing the option of labeled remittances (amount and use) to Filipino workers in the United Arab Emirates. The study finds that migrants with low base remittances increased their remittances but those with higher base remittances did not.