This book studies the impact of public expenditure allocations in achieving income equality goals in Malaysia. The book examines the initial functional and institutional distribution of income across different institutional agents and sectors and evaluates the impact of the public expenditure policies in reducing the inter-ethnic and rural–urban disparity. Since Malaysia has made enormous progress in eliminating poverty, the authors suggest that a change of emphasis in the public expenditure policy may now be called for. They present evidence on the importance of public expenditure in improving income inequality and examine the initial functional and institutional distribution of income across different institutional agents and sectors. The development of the Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) model that presents both economic and social statistics in an economy can be served as a useful tool of this work. The SAM model is used to evaluate the impact of the public expenditure policies in reducing inter-ethnic and rural–urban disparity. A comprehensive source of information on how to deal with inequality economic challenges, the book will be of interest to economists and researchers on Southeast Asian Studies.

Despite the fact that the recent rice policy has been moving to a strategy of self-sufficiency while the status quo of the national rice economy remains ambiguous, Malaysia has made an extreme policy decision to pursue an autarky economy in its rice sector, thus closing borders from the international markets in the future. The goal of this dissertation research is to comprehensively evaluate a deep-rooted rice policy in Malaysia and analyze the holistic impacts of the self-sufficiency and international trade policies at the national and farm-household levels, utilizing economic frameworks. The protectionist policy measures using a Policy Analysis Matrix reveals that Malaysia is not a competitive rice producer since domestic production is unprofitable at the comparable world price level which leads to significant losses without providing subsidies and producer price support by the government. Since a comparable world price is lower, Malaysia has no comparative advantage in rice production, hence the ongoing interventionist policy approach causes inefficient market outcomes as a result of policy distortions. The analysis of spatial, partial equilibrium model indicates pursuing self-sufficiency would effectively punish consumers due to tremendous increase in prices, thus reducing demand for consumption. The government suffers from the self-sufficiency due to substantial requirements on additional subsidies, land inputs, and technological inefficiency which leads to economic losses. With affordability is a key pillar of food security, self-sufficiency policy strategy does not guarantee food security, instead, free trade allows a more food secure economy. These findings are supported by a farm-household model that shows free trade decreases poverty rates by allowing greater rice consumption. Rice farmers would benefit from self-sufficiency, yet losing from the international free trade, without subsidies. The impacts of protectionist, self-sufficiency, and free trade policies are often misconstrued to focus only on the production side protecting rice farmers' livelihoods and welfare. The government must consider the policy effects on the economy as a whole, including farmers' and consumers' welfare, and agricultural economic efficiency. While political economy dominates policy outcomes relative to the goal of economic efficiency, this study provides key insights and empirical measures for non-distortionary policy options and future policy directions.

This thorough analysis of Malaysia's economic expansion evaluates the success of the government's New Economic Policy (NEP), which was designed to promote national unity by reducing poverty as well as by loosening the link between ethnicity and economic function. The first comprehensive analysis of income distribution trends after the inauguration of the NEP, the study also considers interethnic, urban-rural, and regional variations over time. Although there have been significant reductions in poverty and income inequality, Hashim uses previously unpublished data to show that both are still rampant.

Malaysian Industrial Policy argues that selective government promotion efforts have been successful and crucial for Malaysias industrialisation despite some disastrous consequences associated with the Mahathir governments heavy industrialisation programme. The authors present evidence to show that direct and indirect government interventions have induced and supported investments, accelerating the structural transformation of the Malaysian economy. However, industrial development in Malaysia has been modest compared with that in Northeast Asia because of weaknesses in industrial policy andexcessive reliance on foreign investments.

"An examination of how dictators and democrats in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand built and sustained pro-growth political coalitions"--