Professor (on secondment) of School of Economics at University of the Philippines. His specialties are public economics, development economics and health economics. His research on fiscal decentralization, local political economy, local and regional development, health financing and on impact evaluation have been published in edited volumes and journals such as Journal of Development Studies, Asian Journal of Political Science, Review of Urban and Regional Development Studies, Asian Economic Journal, Lex Localis-The Journal of Local Self-Government, Asian Journal of Social Science, and Asia-Pacific Journal of Public Health.