An accomplished economist, Dr. Habito is Chairman and Founding Partner of Brain Trust Inc. and writes the weekly column “No Free Lunch” in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, now on its 23rd year. He is also currently an Independent Director at First Philippine Holdings, PHINMA Corporation, Sun Life Prosperity Funds and Manila Exposition Complex, Inc; Chairman of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Advisory Committee, Operation Compassion Philippines, and Life Learning Organization of PEACE; member of the World Bank Civil Society Advisory Group and EDCOM II Standing Committee on Governance and Finance; and Editor-in-Chief of the Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development.

He served in the Cabinet of former President Fidel V. Ramos throughout his presidency in 1992-1998, as Secretary of Socioeconomic Planning heading the National Economic and Development Authority. Prior to that, he was Professor and Chairman of the Department of Economics at the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB), and later, Professor of Economics at the Ateneo de Manila University in 2001-2024, where he was also Director of the Ateneo Center for Economic Research and Development until 2012. In the past, he had also worked at the World Bank in Washington D.C., Harvard University, Center for Southeast Asian Studies in Kyoto University, and Asian Development Bank Institute in Tokyo.