Alleviating Poverty in the Philippines Through Entrepreneurship

Poverty is a global phenomenon characterized by the lack of access by households to their basic necessities—those earning US$1.25 daily and possessing very low capital, thus trapping them in a cycle of poverty as capital diminishes from one generation to another. In line with the Sustainable Development Goals, the Philippine government has set as one of its overarching goals to significantly reduce poverty incidence. To address poverty, several interventions have been put in places such as the conditional cash transfer, foreign aid, and entrepreneurship. Using a repeated cross-section model, we look into entrepreneurship as an intervention to push economic growth that allows for poverty mobility. Results have shown that entrepreneurship increases the probability of moving out of poverty and remaining above the poverty threshold. These have implications on government creating investment, insurance, and income stabilization schemes to address poverty.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, poverty, repeated cross-section, sustainable development
JEL Classifications: C21, I32, L26