Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Income Inequality, Poverty and Development Policy

Pada 22-23 November 2001, saya membentangkan kertas kerja bertajuk "Income Inequality, Poverty and Development Policy in Malaysia" di International Seminar on "Poverty and Sustainable Development" yang dianjurkan oleh Université Montesquieu-Bordeaux IV and UNESCO-Paris,France. Website seminar ini boleh dilayari disini: http://ged.u-bordeaux4.fr/unescoprg.htm. Abstrak kertas kerja tersebut ialah seperti berikut:

This paper examines income inequality and poverty in Malaysia. It is argued that government intervention under the New Economic Policy has been successful in generating economic growth and development of the country in general, and in the development of the Malay ethnic group in particular. Government intervention that begins in the 1970s has significantly reduced poverty, particularly poverty amongst the Malay ethnic group. Furthermore, the overall income inequality as well as interethnic and rural-urban inequality has also decline since the middle of 1970 to 1990. Since 1990 however, even though poverty has decline further, income inequality has started to rise. Besides there emerge a new dimension of inequality, that is intraethnic inequality. This paper argues that the existence of intra-ethnic inequality, particularly intra-Malay inequality, pose the major challenge to Malaysian policymakers. The reason is that, government intervention under the New Economic Policy is articulated in the political rhetoric of ethnicity, and it appears to be coherent in addressing the problem of poverty amongst the Malays when majority of them were in poverty. The New Economic Policy has significantly reduced poverty amongst the Malay, and there now exist a new problem of intra-Malay inequality. The existence of intra-Malay inequality suggests that deeper division amongst the Malay community has emerged, implying that there emerged diverse and conflicting interests within the Malay community itself. Continued use of ethnicity as the foundation of economic policy is no longer coherent, and hence could only be undertaken with the risk of greater discontent, paradoxically amongst the Malay community. In such a situation, government intervention that is articulated in the political rhetoric of ethnicity would be incoherent to solve this new problem of inequality.

A. H. Roslan (2001). “Income Inequality and Development Policy: The Case of Malaysia”, International Seminar on "Poverty and Sustainable Development", 22 & 23 November 2001 organised by Université Montesquieu-Bordeaux IV and UNESCO-Paris,France. [The paper can be downloaded from this website: http://ged.u-bordeaux4.fr/unescoprg.htm or http://ged.u-bordeaux4.fr/SBROSLAN.pdf]

The World Bank has made the above article available in their World Bank Poverty Net website:
http://poverty2.forumone.com/library/country/106/ or
http://poverty2.forumone.com/library/view/13714/

The above article has also been published in ASIAN PROFILE. See Roslan, A.H. (2003). “Income Inequality, Poverty and Redistribution Policy in Malaysia”, ASIAN PROFILE, Vol. 31, No. 3 (June).

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Dulu SMSPP sekarang SMSTSSS

Dulu saya merupakan pelajar di Sekolah Menengah Sains Pulau Pinang (SMSPP), 1976-1980. Kini Iqbal juga belajar disitu. Kini SMSPP dikenali sebagai Sekolah Menengah Sains Tun Syed Sheh Shahabuddin (SMSTSSS).

A.H.Roslan Harahap dan R. Iqbal Harahap bergambar dihadapan bangunan pejabat SMSTSSS.

International Seminar on the Reformation of Socio-Economic Institution for Poor Household in Indonesia




Pada 11-14hb. Ogos 2008 saya dan PA saya (MM Norita Siregar) ke Jember, Jawa Timur, Indonesia. Saya dijemput untuk membentangkan kertas kerja di "International Seminar on the Reformation of Socio-Economic Institution for Poor Household in Indonesia" anjuran Japan Foundation dan Politeknik Negeri Jember. Kami sempat bermalam di kota Surabaya dan kembali ke Malaysia pada 14hb. Ogos 2008. Laporan berkaitan seminar boleh dibaca di laman web ini: http://bankgakin-jember.com/?p=98




MM Norita Siregar