What's wrong with Mindanao? The unequal development in the Philippines

This thesis presents four papers on unequal development in the Philippines. The first paper investigates the dynamics of provincial per capita income growth. Results show that income disparities across provinces are increasing over time. There is also evidence of income club convergence where provinces are clustering into high, middle, and low-income groups. The second paper focuses on the determinants of provincial per capita income growth. Results show that the effects of growth determinants vary, depending on whether a province is fast growing or lagging behind. This means lagging provinces have more to gain from additional infrastructure and drop in fertility compared to fast growing provinces. The third paper investigates the role of conflict in the development dichotomy in Mindanao. Evidences suggest that conflict disrupts economic activity, damages social cohesion, polarises society, breeds lawlessness, and creates insecurity resulting to poor development outcomes in conflict-affected provinces. The fourth paper probes the role of political clientelism and its effect on the socio-economic development in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). A region-wide survey data is employed to investigate the existence of clientelism. Results show that clientelism is strongly embedded in the political landscape of ARMM. Key informant interviews and focus group discussions reveal that local executives tend to keep their area impoverished and use government resources to sustain clientelistic relationships. These findings suggest that central government should prioritise poor and lagging provinces in order to achieve a more inclusive growth. On ARMM, rectifying the extractive local politics is needed to hasten development in the region