{"title":"Japan Center for Economic Research","authors":"","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12415","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.12415","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"18 1","pages":"148"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2023-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12415","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50128976","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
<p>Gotoh and Kambayashi (<span>2022</span>) tackle important topics, including proposing a new measurement of human welfare and capturing some of the problems under COVID-19. Their measurement is based on the capability approach, and it is their ultimate goal to reexamine the transformation of publicness in contemporary Japan.</p><p>I agree that Gotoh and Kambayashi's paper can significantly contribute to economic research, especially empirical welfare analysis (Fleurbaey, <span>2009</span>; Saez & Stantcheva, <span>2016</span>; Fleurbaey & Maniquet, <span>2018</span>). Moreover, their paper can provide an important perspective to discussing public policies.</p><p>In particular, it is a unique and good idea to apply the capability approach to the “the stay-home policy.” Gotoh and Kambayashi's data is for older respondents with COVID-19, who may be seriously affected by the pandemic, and their capability is mostly damaged. I think both the policy and data are relevant to the capability approach.</p><p>However, I strongly suggest that Gotoh and Kambayashi improve the transparency of their methods and findings because some parts of the current version are unclear and not self-contained. I believe research transparency is especially important in the general-interest and policy journals, including the <i>Asian Economic Policy Review</i>. Moreover, transparency can increase the social impact of this important paper.</p><p>I have five specific comments. First, their main contribution is to evaluate human welfare by unique measurement connecting publicness and the capability approach. I think this measurement is a reasonable alternative to traditional welfare measurement (for example, income and consumption). However, I cannot find a clear discussion about the relevance of publicness and the capability approach. Those concepts may not be familiar to potential readers, and Gotoh and Kambayashi should then explicitly discuss why the capability approach is relevant for discussing and measuring publicness.</p><p>Second, I guess Gotoh and Kambayashi's paper is not a purely theoretical paper proposing new welfare measurement; measuring contemporary Japan is also an important research goal. However, while the measurement concepts are explained in detail, I can only find a poor explanation of their data. They should provide more information about the data and then discuss the uncertainty of measurement results due to the incompleteness of the data. I guess another paper (Kambayashi <i>et al</i>., <span>2022</span>) provides a detailed explanation, but the present paper should include an explanation of important information, at least the sample size, the sampling method, and missing values. That information is especially important to evaluate the reliability of their empirical results. Additionally, I prefer researchers to report sampling uncertainly (for example, standard errors or confidence intervals).</p><p>Third, Gotoh and Kambayashi's introduction p
Gotoh和Kambayashi（2022）处理了重要话题，包括提出一种新的人类福利衡量方法，并捕捉新冠肺炎下的一些问题。他们的衡量是基于能力方法的，重新审视当代日本公共性的转变是他们的最终目标。我同意后藤和Kambayashi的论文可以对经济研究，特别是实证福利分析做出重大贡献（Fleurbey，2009；Saez和Stantcheva，2016；Fleurbey&；Maniquet，2018）。此外，他们的论文可以为讨论公共政策提供一个重要的视角。特别是，将能力方法应用于“居家政策”是一个独特而好的想法。Gotoh和Kambayashi的数据适用于患有新冠肺炎的老年受访者，他们可能会受到疫情的严重影响，他们的能力大多受损。我认为政策和数据都与能力方法相关。然而，我强烈建议Gotoh和Kambayashi提高他们的方法和调查结果的透明度，因为当前版本的某些部分不清楚，也不完整。我认为研究透明度在包括《亚洲经济政策评论》在内的公众利益和政策期刊中尤为重要。此外，透明度可以增加这篇重要论文的社会影响。我有五点具体意见。首先，他们的主要贡献是通过将公共性和能力方法联系起来的独特测量来评估人类福利。我认为这种衡量是对传统福利衡量（例如收入和消费）的合理替代。然而，我找不到关于公共性的相关性和能力方法的明确讨论。潜在读者可能不熟悉这些概念，Gotoh和Kambayashi应该明确讨论为什么能力方法与讨论和衡量公众性相关。其次，我认为后藤和Kambayashi的论文并不是一篇提出新福利衡量的纯粹理论论文；衡量当代日本也是一个重要的研究目标。然而，虽然对测量概念进行了详细解释，但我只能发现对其数据的解释很差。他们应该提供更多关于数据的信息，然后讨论由于数据不完整而导致的测量结果的不确定性。我想另一篇论文（Kambayashi et al.，2022）提供了详细的解释，但本论文应该包括对重要信息的解释，至少包括样本量、采样方法和缺失值。这些信息对于评估其实证结果的可靠性尤其重要。此外，我更喜欢研究人员报告抽样的不确定性（例如，标准误差或置信区间）。第三，Gotoh和Kambayashi的介绍提出了两个研究问题：（1）为什么日本政府不能迅速采取精确的政策，以及（2）我们如何阻止这种将弱势群体抛在福利国家后面的政策？我同意这两个问题的重要性，但我没有找到这些问题的明确答案。关于问题（1），他们的结论是，“我们对这个问题的初步答案是：这个问题与公共援助系统在最低生活水平和受助人数方面缓慢但显著地缩减有关。”然而，尚不清楚哪些实证结果与这一说法相关。此外，我找不到任何部分来回答问题（2）。请注意，我只要求部分答案，而不是“明确的答案”，因为他们的研究问题很难。第四，Gotoh和Kambayashi应该讨论他们实证研究结果的外部有效性。引言说，“新冠肺炎下出现的现象是那些长期存在于社会中的现象。”我也认为这是一个好主意，但要求更清楚地讨论他们的发现对新冠肺炎的外部（长期）影响。外部有效性对本文尤其重要，因为他们的实证分析侧重于患有新冠肺炎的老年受访者，但论文的动机是长期现象（例如，日本公共援助体系的长期转型）。我的第五点也是最后一点评论是一个更具技术性的观点。他们的测量侧重于三组设置。他们为什么选择三组有任何理由或正当理由吗？此外，测量是否可以扩展到更多的群体？如果这个概念可以应用于更普遍的环境中，它也可以应用于更多的实证工作中。此外，最好在经验环境中（残疾、护理使用者和普通老年人）为群体定义提供理由。我同意这个定义是合理的，但清晰的讨论可以帮助读者获得更深入的理解。
{"title":"Comment on “What the Welfare State Left Behind—Securing the Capability to Move for the Vulnerable”","authors":"Keisuke Kawata","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12413","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.12413","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Gotoh and Kambayashi (<span>2022</span>) tackle important topics, including proposing a new measurement of human welfare and capturing some of the problems under COVID-19. Their measurement is based on the capability approach, and it is their ultimate goal to reexamine the transformation of publicness in contemporary Japan.</p><p>I agree that Gotoh and Kambayashi's paper can significantly contribute to economic research, especially empirical welfare analysis (Fleurbaey, <span>2009</span>; Saez & Stantcheva, <span>2016</span>; Fleurbaey & Maniquet, <span>2018</span>). Moreover, their paper can provide an important perspective to discussing public policies.</p><p>In particular, it is a unique and good idea to apply the capability approach to the “the stay-home policy.” Gotoh and Kambayashi's data is for older respondents with COVID-19, who may be seriously affected by the pandemic, and their capability is mostly damaged. I think both the policy and data are relevant to the capability approach.</p><p>However, I strongly suggest that Gotoh and Kambayashi improve the transparency of their methods and findings because some parts of the current version are unclear and not self-contained. I believe research transparency is especially important in the general-interest and policy journals, including the <i>Asian Economic Policy Review</i>. Moreover, transparency can increase the social impact of this important paper.</p><p>I have five specific comments. First, their main contribution is to evaluate human welfare by unique measurement connecting publicness and the capability approach. I think this measurement is a reasonable alternative to traditional welfare measurement (for example, income and consumption). However, I cannot find a clear discussion about the relevance of publicness and the capability approach. Those concepts may not be familiar to potential readers, and Gotoh and Kambayashi should then explicitly discuss why the capability approach is relevant for discussing and measuring publicness.</p><p>Second, I guess Gotoh and Kambayashi's paper is not a purely theoretical paper proposing new welfare measurement; measuring contemporary Japan is also an important research goal. However, while the measurement concepts are explained in detail, I can only find a poor explanation of their data. They should provide more information about the data and then discuss the uncertainty of measurement results due to the incompleteness of the data. I guess another paper (Kambayashi <i>et al</i>., <span>2022</span>) provides a detailed explanation, but the present paper should include an explanation of important information, at least the sample size, the sampling method, and missing values. That information is especially important to evaluate the reliability of their empirical results. Additionally, I prefer researchers to report sampling uncertainly (for example, standard errors or confidence intervals).</p><p>Third, Gotoh and Kambayashi's introduction p","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"18 1","pages":"146-147"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12413","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50120314","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
<p>Any meaningful assessment of Malaysia's New Economic Policy (NEP) (Lee, <span>2022</span>) should be historical. One question which arises here is how one does historical political economy. After all, there are many different schools of political economy, even if few have addressed “affirmative action.”</p><p>A key question is how one treats normative issues that inevitably come up. How one understands notions such as “social justice” has long been contested. These are often understood and invoked very differently. And how is a term such as “affirmative action”, which arose in response to US civil rights struggles in the middle of the 20th century, to be understood in other contexts?</p><p>When first announced to the Malaysian nation in mid-1971, the NEP was presented as being needed for building “national unity” following the divisive events of May 1969. The NEP has often been presented officially and by others as responding to “race riots” following the young nation's third general elections in which the incumbent multi-ethnic Alliance coalition lost its electoral majority. This perspective implies inter-ethnic economic disparities were responsible for “May 1969”.</p><p>Anand's (<span>1982</span>) Theil decomposition suggests that less than a tenth of overall income inequality in 1970 (before the NEP) could not be explained by various non-ethnic factors such as education. Anand concludes that, at most, only a corresponding share of income inequality can be attributed to ethnicity. His analysis implies there is limited scope for reducing overall income inequality by reducing inter-ethnic disparities. The NEP's primarily ethnic focus for over half a century is hence unlikely to significantly lower economic inequality in Malaysia. Unsurprisingly, despite over half a century of the NEP, total income inequality remains high, even if underestimated.</p><p>Equating “social justice” with efforts to reduce inter-ethnic disparities is problematic. Supported by and responsive to the newly emerging Malay “middle class”, the new Malaysian regime defined “restructuring society” as one of the two NEP targets. This has been mainly understood as “positive discrimination”, or affirmative action, along ethnic lines, to eliminate the identification of “race” with “economic function”.</p><p>Defining social justice in terms of achieving affirmative action policy is problematic. Such a definition also effectively rejects other possible interpretations of “social justice”, for example, in terms of “abolishing class exploitation”, or achieving low income or wealth inequality, or reducing disparities among different regions.</p><p>Sabah and Sarawak state rights within the Malaysian federation did not preoccupy Prime Minister Razak during 1969–1971. However, this omission in the NEP's ostensible social justice agenda is probably not acceptable to East Malaysians who believe they have not gotten a fair deal from the demographic majority in Peninsular Malaysia. Others m
毕竟，在1971年，拉扎克已经设想了一个拥有全面和普遍社会保障的马来西亚国家。
{"title":"Comment on “Social Justice and Affirmative Action in Malaysia: The New Economic Policy after 50 Years”","authors":"Kwame Sundaram Jomo","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12411","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.12411","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Any meaningful assessment of Malaysia's New Economic Policy (NEP) (Lee, <span>2022</span>) should be historical. One question which arises here is how one does historical political economy. After all, there are many different schools of political economy, even if few have addressed “affirmative action.”</p><p>A key question is how one treats normative issues that inevitably come up. How one understands notions such as “social justice” has long been contested. These are often understood and invoked very differently. And how is a term such as “affirmative action”, which arose in response to US civil rights struggles in the middle of the 20th century, to be understood in other contexts?</p><p>When first announced to the Malaysian nation in mid-1971, the NEP was presented as being needed for building “national unity” following the divisive events of May 1969. The NEP has often been presented officially and by others as responding to “race riots” following the young nation's third general elections in which the incumbent multi-ethnic Alliance coalition lost its electoral majority. This perspective implies inter-ethnic economic disparities were responsible for “May 1969”.</p><p>Anand's (<span>1982</span>) Theil decomposition suggests that less than a tenth of overall income inequality in 1970 (before the NEP) could not be explained by various non-ethnic factors such as education. Anand concludes that, at most, only a corresponding share of income inequality can be attributed to ethnicity. His analysis implies there is limited scope for reducing overall income inequality by reducing inter-ethnic disparities. The NEP's primarily ethnic focus for over half a century is hence unlikely to significantly lower economic inequality in Malaysia. Unsurprisingly, despite over half a century of the NEP, total income inequality remains high, even if underestimated.</p><p>Equating “social justice” with efforts to reduce inter-ethnic disparities is problematic. Supported by and responsive to the newly emerging Malay “middle class”, the new Malaysian regime defined “restructuring society” as one of the two NEP targets. This has been mainly understood as “positive discrimination”, or affirmative action, along ethnic lines, to eliminate the identification of “race” with “economic function”.</p><p>Defining social justice in terms of achieving affirmative action policy is problematic. Such a definition also effectively rejects other possible interpretations of “social justice”, for example, in terms of “abolishing class exploitation”, or achieving low income or wealth inequality, or reducing disparities among different regions.</p><p>Sabah and Sarawak state rights within the Malaysian federation did not preoccupy Prime Minister Razak during 1969–1971. However, this omission in the NEP's ostensible social justice agenda is probably not acceptable to East Malaysians who believe they have not gotten a fair deal from the demographic majority in Peninsular Malaysia. Others m","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"18 1","pages":"120-121"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12411","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50154742","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
<p>The Covid-19 pandemic has increased poverty and inequality within and across countries (Narayan <i>et al</i>., <span>2022</span>). The World Bank (<span>2020</span>) has estimated that between 88 million and 115 million more people moved into extreme poverty globally in 2020. Some countries fared worse situations than others because of the weak responses from governments in terms of the adequacy of the health system, the vaccination rollout, as well as the deployment of fiscal resources to support households and businesses. The need for urgent economic policy responses to the pandemic and its consequences has also resulted in the use of interventions that were primarily based on consumption and income metrics. Such policies are likely to be more effective had they incorporated the notion of human capabilities, a concept in the capability approach to inequality.</p><p>Gotoh and Kambayashi (<span>2022</span>) apply the capability approach to help us understand why and how physical mobility should matter in formulating policies that are aimed to support persons that are vulnerable in terms of being disabled, requiring nursing care and the elderly. Several analytical and empirical innovations are required to do this.</p><p>A theoretical framework is first constructed to analyze differences in the level of capability across groups (in terms of vulnerability—disabled, in nursing care and the elderly) which are then further divided into sub-groups in terms of different (discrete) degrees of physical mobility (going-out/staying-home). Associated with these sub-groups is a vector of individual functioning (with each element indexed by vulnerability and mobility). To provide a quantitative measure of how mobility affects functioning, a vector of maximum attainable level of functioning based on different mobility levels is constructed. The “damage” associated with different combinations of vulnerability and mobility can be derived by computing the difference between the maximal functioning vector and each sub-group's functioning vector (via a Euclidean distance function).</p><p>The empirical innovations in Gotoh and Kambayashi (<span>2022</span>) entail the implementation of surveys to collect information on the sets of utilization ability and functioning. This leads to an assessment of how human capabilities are relatively affected across the different types of vulnerability and levels of physical mobility. Although not emphasized by Gotoh and Kambayashi but much emphasized in the capability approach literature, the freedom interpretation of capabilities is very important.</p><p>A significant contribution of Gotoh and Kambayashi (<span>2022</span>) is providing an example of how an empirically grounded approach based on the capability approach can be used in formulating policies that are aimed at improving the lives of the vulnerable during the Covid pandemic. One can further argue that the scope of the application of the capability approach to inequali
新冠肺炎大流行加剧了各国内部和各国之间的贫困和不平等（Narayan et al.，2022）。世界银行（2020）估计，2020年全球又有8800万至1.15亿人陷入极端贫困。一些国家的情况比其他国家更糟，因为政府在卫生系统的充分性、疫苗接种以及支持家庭和企业的财政资源部署方面反应不力。对疫情及其后果采取紧急经济政策的必要性也导致了主要基于消费和收入指标的干预措施的使用。如果这些政策纳入了人的能力的概念，这是解决不平等问题的能力方法中的一个概念，那么这些政策可能会更加有效。Gotoh和Kambayashi（2022）应用能力方法来帮助我们理解在制定旨在支持残疾人、需要护理的人和老年人的政策时，身体灵活性为什么以及如何重要。要做到这一点，需要进行一些分析和实证创新。首先构建了一个理论框架来分析不同群体能力水平的差异（就脆弱性而言——残疾人、护理人员和老年人），然后根据不同（离散）的身体活动程度（外出/呆在家里）将这些群体进一步分为亚组。与这些子组相关的是个体功能的载体（每个元素都以脆弱性和流动性为索引）。为了提供流动性如何影响功能的定量测量，构建了一个基于不同流动性水平的最大可达到功能水平的向量。与脆弱性和流动性的不同组合相关的“损害”可以通过计算最大功能向量和每个子组的功能向量之间的差异（通过欧几里得距离函数）得出。Gotoh和Kambayashi（2022）的经验创新需要实施调查，以收集利用能力和功能。这导致了对不同类型的脆弱性和身体活动水平对人类能力的相对影响的评估。虽然Gotoh和Kambayashi没有强调，但在能力方法文献中却强调了很多，对能力的自由解释是非常重要的。Gotoh和Kambayashi（2022）的一个重要贡献是提供了一个例子，说明如何在制定旨在改善新冠肺炎大流行期间弱势群体生活的政策时，使用基于能力方法的实证方法。人们可以进一步争辩说，能力方法在不平等问题上的应用范围确实非常广泛。这是因为人类的活动和能力有很多方面，包括各种类型的优势和弱点，这些优势和弱点不仅会在个人的一生中发生变化，还会受到技术变化的影响（技术变化会改变功能的所有元素——商品特征映射和利用能力）解决不平等问题的能力方法是设计和实施旨在收集有关人类能力信息的调查。这应该利用物联网等新技术，这些技术能够收集实时信息，从而揭示健康的各个方面，如身体流动性和与他人的互动。Gotoh和Kambayashi（2022）深入探讨了基于能力方法的政策干预对不平等的潜力。
{"title":"Comment on “What the Welfare State Left behind: Securing the Capability to Move for the Vulnerable”","authors":"Cassey Lee","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12410","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.12410","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The Covid-19 pandemic has increased poverty and inequality within and across countries (Narayan <i>et al</i>., <span>2022</span>). The World Bank (<span>2020</span>) has estimated that between 88 million and 115 million more people moved into extreme poverty globally in 2020. Some countries fared worse situations than others because of the weak responses from governments in terms of the adequacy of the health system, the vaccination rollout, as well as the deployment of fiscal resources to support households and businesses. The need for urgent economic policy responses to the pandemic and its consequences has also resulted in the use of interventions that were primarily based on consumption and income metrics. Such policies are likely to be more effective had they incorporated the notion of human capabilities, a concept in the capability approach to inequality.</p><p>Gotoh and Kambayashi (<span>2022</span>) apply the capability approach to help us understand why and how physical mobility should matter in formulating policies that are aimed to support persons that are vulnerable in terms of being disabled, requiring nursing care and the elderly. Several analytical and empirical innovations are required to do this.</p><p>A theoretical framework is first constructed to analyze differences in the level of capability across groups (in terms of vulnerability—disabled, in nursing care and the elderly) which are then further divided into sub-groups in terms of different (discrete) degrees of physical mobility (going-out/staying-home). Associated with these sub-groups is a vector of individual functioning (with each element indexed by vulnerability and mobility). To provide a quantitative measure of how mobility affects functioning, a vector of maximum attainable level of functioning based on different mobility levels is constructed. The “damage” associated with different combinations of vulnerability and mobility can be derived by computing the difference between the maximal functioning vector and each sub-group's functioning vector (via a Euclidean distance function).</p><p>The empirical innovations in Gotoh and Kambayashi (<span>2022</span>) entail the implementation of surveys to collect information on the sets of utilization ability and functioning. This leads to an assessment of how human capabilities are relatively affected across the different types of vulnerability and levels of physical mobility. Although not emphasized by Gotoh and Kambayashi but much emphasized in the capability approach literature, the freedom interpretation of capabilities is very important.</p><p>A significant contribution of Gotoh and Kambayashi (<span>2022</span>) is providing an example of how an empirically grounded approach based on the capability approach can be used in formulating policies that are aimed at improving the lives of the vulnerable during the Covid pandemic. One can further argue that the scope of the application of the capability approach to inequali","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"18 1","pages":"144-145"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12410","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50154740","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
<p>The debate on affirmative action and the New Economic Policy (NEP) in Malaysia is controversial, and often attracts mixed and emotional responses to its relevance and achievements. Lee (<span>2022</span>) is an attempt to reset the affirmative action agenda in Malaysia by anchoring it on the principles of equality and fairness, and deserves serious consideration by policy makers.</p><p>Some of the key points of Lee (<span>2022</span>) are worth highlighting. First, the NEP policy design has unintended deficiencies. While the first prong of the policy (the reduction of poverty) has a specific target of reducing the poverty rate from 49% in 1970 to 16% in 1990, the targets for the second prong, the “restructuring of society,” are omitted, apart from increasing Bumiputera equity ownership to 30% by 1990. Other indicators, such as participation in higher education and professional occupations, were overlooked. The 20-year timeframe set for the policy is also impractical.</p><p>Second, public discourse often misguidedly portrays the NEP as a zero-sum game. The “terminate or continue” debate ignores the fact that the policy enjoys support from the Bumiputera community, and it is politically impractical to terminate it without political negotiations, at the same time disruptive to the recipients. While the argument that given the majority of the poor are Bumiputera and thus focusing on need-based would still help predominately Bumiputera, it “errs in viewing the NEP's two prongs as substitutes rather than complements.” Race-based and need-based policies are complements, not replacements.</p><p>Third, the focus of the NEP during the past decade has been mostly on the bottom 40% of households (irrespective of race) via mostly a cash transfer program and on micro and small enterprises, which are targeted mostly for the Bumiputera. The group-targeted policies have expanded beyond Bumiputera to include Indians, Orang Asli, women, and marginalized groups.</p><p>Fourth. Lee (<span>2022</span>) proposes that the policy be anchored on the principle of equality, and fairness to targeted groups. Lee also correctly argues that any policy changes to the NEP must go beyond household income.</p><p>However, there are some issues that warrant explanation or elaboration in Lee (<span>2022</span>). First, while it is generally assumed that the Bumiputera agenda started with the NEP, actually the pro-Malay economic agenda began during the latter part of the colonial period. The first official attempt by the British colonial government to address the Malay economic backwardness was institutionalized in the Draft Development Plan (1950–1955) It continued in the First Five-Year Malaya Plan (1956–1960), which included setting up the Federal Land Development Authority in 1956 to address poverty, especially among the landless Malays. The Malay-focus of the economic agenda by the British was a deliberate strategy to ensure that Malay nationalism post-independence would not nat
{"title":"Comment on “Social Justice and Affirmative Action in Malaysia: The New Economic Policy after 50 Years”","authors":"Muhammed Abdul Khalid","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12412","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.12412","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The debate on affirmative action and the New Economic Policy (NEP) in Malaysia is controversial, and often attracts mixed and emotional responses to its relevance and achievements. Lee (<span>2022</span>) is an attempt to reset the affirmative action agenda in Malaysia by anchoring it on the principles of equality and fairness, and deserves serious consideration by policy makers.</p><p>Some of the key points of Lee (<span>2022</span>) are worth highlighting. First, the NEP policy design has unintended deficiencies. While the first prong of the policy (the reduction of poverty) has a specific target of reducing the poverty rate from 49% in 1970 to 16% in 1990, the targets for the second prong, the “restructuring of society,” are omitted, apart from increasing Bumiputera equity ownership to 30% by 1990. Other indicators, such as participation in higher education and professional occupations, were overlooked. The 20-year timeframe set for the policy is also impractical.</p><p>Second, public discourse often misguidedly portrays the NEP as a zero-sum game. The “terminate or continue” debate ignores the fact that the policy enjoys support from the Bumiputera community, and it is politically impractical to terminate it without political negotiations, at the same time disruptive to the recipients. While the argument that given the majority of the poor are Bumiputera and thus focusing on need-based would still help predominately Bumiputera, it “errs in viewing the NEP's two prongs as substitutes rather than complements.” Race-based and need-based policies are complements, not replacements.</p><p>Third, the focus of the NEP during the past decade has been mostly on the bottom 40% of households (irrespective of race) via mostly a cash transfer program and on micro and small enterprises, which are targeted mostly for the Bumiputera. The group-targeted policies have expanded beyond Bumiputera to include Indians, Orang Asli, women, and marginalized groups.</p><p>Fourth. Lee (<span>2022</span>) proposes that the policy be anchored on the principle of equality, and fairness to targeted groups. Lee also correctly argues that any policy changes to the NEP must go beyond household income.</p><p>However, there are some issues that warrant explanation or elaboration in Lee (<span>2022</span>). First, while it is generally assumed that the Bumiputera agenda started with the NEP, actually the pro-Malay economic agenda began during the latter part of the colonial period. The first official attempt by the British colonial government to address the Malay economic backwardness was institutionalized in the Draft Development Plan (1950–1955) It continued in the First Five-Year Malaya Plan (1956–1960), which included setting up the Federal Land Development Authority in 1956 to address poverty, especially among the landless Malays. The Malay-focus of the economic agenda by the British was a deliberate strategy to ensure that Malay nationalism post-independence would not nat","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"18 1","pages":"122-123"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12412","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50154741","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
<p>I agree with Zhuang (<span>2022</span>) in his summary assessments of the negative effects of income inequality. Zhuang (<span>2022</span>) includes a section on the inequality in China, so I would like to focus my comments on this section, and particularly on the working-age households in China.</p><p>Most of the inequality measures cited in Zhang's paper and in other studies are from OECD or World Bank calculations. China's measures come from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Unfortunately, it is difficult to decompose NBS' measures since the micro-level data used by the NBS are not publicly available.</p><p>Fortunately, there are several large-scale academic household surveys that are available – one of them is the China Household Income Project, led by Zhuang's coauthor on other occasions, Shi Li from Zhejiang University. My analysis here is partially based on another survey, the China Household Finance Survey, that I am the lead investigator for.</p><p>Zhuang (<span>2022</span>) discusses income inequality decade-wise since the 1980s. I would like to list the biennial changes of income inequality since 2010. Table 1 lists the P90/P50 ratios between 2010–2018. According to Table 1, inequality decreased slightly, from 3.65 to 3.28, between 2010 and 2018. However, working-age households did not see much change in these ratios, while families with retired people (at least one person in the family is older than 60) see a significant drop in inequality, from 5.09 to 3.21.</p><p>To understand the reason for this, we compare government transfers to the elderly in the form of pension payments, and government transfers to working-age households. The former includes payments to retirees covered by both the Basic Employee Pension Insurance and the Resident Pension Insurance. The latter includes payments from all social assistance programs, such as unemployment benefits and <i>Dibao</i> payments.</p><p>According to the official statistics, the percentage of pension payments to gross domestic product (GDP) more than doubled from 2.1% in 2010 to 5.4%, in 2019. Meanwhile, the percentage of social assistance to GDP decreased from 0.97% to 0.80%. The increase of social pension payments to GDP is a combination of rising benefits and rising numbers of retirees. The per capita pension payment was RMB 8144 in 2012, and RMB 18,958 in 2020 with an annual growth rate of 11.1%. Meanwhile, nominal per capita GDP only grew 7.74% annually. This is because of the differences in social spending, and the reduction in income inequality among elderly in China while income inequality among working-age families is stagnant.</p><p>Figure 1 indicates China's social spending relative to other countries. The left panel plots total pension payments as a percentage of GDP, relative to its GDP per capita. This panel shows that China's pension payments are on par with the projected world average indicated by a regression line. However, the right panel of Figure 1 plots the s
我同意庄（2022）对收入不平等负面影响的总结评估。庄（2022）有一节是关于中国的不平等，所以我想把我的评论集中在这一节上，特别是中国的劳动年龄家庭。张的论文和其他研究中引用的大多数不平等指标都来自经合组织或世界银行的计算。中国的数据来自国家统计局。不幸的是，由于国家统计局使用的微观数据尚未公开，因此很难分解国家统计局的衡量标准。幸运的是，有几项大规模的学术家庭调查可用，其中之一是由庄的合著者、浙江大学的施力领导的中国家庭收入项目。我在这里的分析部分基于另一项调查，中国家庭金融调查，我是该调查的首席调查员。庄（2022）讨论了自20世纪80年代以来的收入不平等问题。我想列出自2010年以来收入不平等的两年变化情况。表1列出了2010-2018年间的P90/P50比率。根据表1，2010年至2018年间，不平等现象略有下降，从3.65降至3.28。然而，工作年龄家庭的这些比例没有太大变化，而有退休人员的家庭（家庭中至少有一人年龄超过60岁）的不平等现象显著下降，从5.09下降到3.21。为了理解原因，我们比较了政府以养老金支付的形式向老年人转移的资金和政府向工作年龄家庭转移的资金。前者包括支付给退休人员的基本职工养老保险和居民养老保险。后者包括所有社会援助项目的付款，如失业救济金和迪宝付款。根据官方统计数据，养老金支付占国内生产总值的比例从2010年的2.1%增加到2019年的5.4%，翻了一番多。与此同时，社会救助占GDP的比例从0.97%下降到0.80%。社会养老金支付占GDP的增加是福利增加和退休人数增加的综合作用。2012年，人均养老金支付额为8144元，2020年为18958元，年增长率为11.1%，而名义人均GDP年增长率仅为7.74%。这是因为社会支出的差异，以及中国老年人收入不平等的减少，而劳动年龄家庭的收入不平等却停滞不前。图1显示了中国相对于其他国家的社会支出。左侧面板将养老金支付总额绘制为GDP相对于人均GDP的百分比。该面板显示，中国的养老金支付与回归线所示的预计世界平均水平持平。然而，图1的右侧面板绘制了劳动年龄家庭的社会支出与其人均GDP的关系图，我们观察到中国的数字远低于预计的世界平均水平。图1显示，中国正在积极向老年人转移资金，但没有向劳动年龄家庭转移。我认为这主要是由于对社会福利制度后果的（错误）理解。官方文件显示，中国政府对“福利主义”深表怀疑。Xi主席最近指示政府“防止‘福利主义’陷阱”，将其作为实现“共同富裕”的关键要素之一（Xi，2021年8月21日，《求是》）。类似的声明多次出现在许多政府文件中。然而，大量文献令人信服地表明，如果转移金额不太大，“依赖福利的”基本上就不存在。在Banerjee等人（2017）中，发展中国家的社会援助并没有抑制工作，因为转移金额仅占消费的10%左右。美国第一个与新冠肺炎相关的政府计划《关怀法案》将失业救济金提高到比中等工人的劳动收入高47%。Petroksy Nadeau和Valletta（2021）发现，即使是这样的福利也不会激励人们辞职。这是因为与新冠肺炎相关的失业救济金只持续了几个月。因此，福利的现值不足以抑制工作。然而，文献证明，向工作年龄的穷人转移可以有效刺激消费（Gan et al.，2018）。社会转移也有利于家庭的人力资本积累（García&；Saavedra，2017）。这两种影响对中国经济现在和未来都至关重要。总之，减少中国收入不平等的关键是大幅增加对劳动年龄贫困人口的转移支付。然而，这样做需要揭开政府官员中普遍存在的“福利主义”的神秘面纱。
{"title":"Comment on “Income and Wealth Inequality in Asia and the Pacific: Trends, Causes, and Policy Remedies”","authors":"Li Gan","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12409","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.12409","url":null,"abstract":"<p>I agree with Zhuang (<span>2022</span>) in his summary assessments of the negative effects of income inequality. Zhuang (<span>2022</span>) includes a section on the inequality in China, so I would like to focus my comments on this section, and particularly on the working-age households in China.</p><p>Most of the inequality measures cited in Zhang's paper and in other studies are from OECD or World Bank calculations. China's measures come from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Unfortunately, it is difficult to decompose NBS' measures since the micro-level data used by the NBS are not publicly available.</p><p>Fortunately, there are several large-scale academic household surveys that are available – one of them is the China Household Income Project, led by Zhuang's coauthor on other occasions, Shi Li from Zhejiang University. My analysis here is partially based on another survey, the China Household Finance Survey, that I am the lead investigator for.</p><p>Zhuang (<span>2022</span>) discusses income inequality decade-wise since the 1980s. I would like to list the biennial changes of income inequality since 2010. Table 1 lists the P90/P50 ratios between 2010–2018. According to Table 1, inequality decreased slightly, from 3.65 to 3.28, between 2010 and 2018. However, working-age households did not see much change in these ratios, while families with retired people (at least one person in the family is older than 60) see a significant drop in inequality, from 5.09 to 3.21.</p><p>To understand the reason for this, we compare government transfers to the elderly in the form of pension payments, and government transfers to working-age households. The former includes payments to retirees covered by both the Basic Employee Pension Insurance and the Resident Pension Insurance. The latter includes payments from all social assistance programs, such as unemployment benefits and <i>Dibao</i> payments.</p><p>According to the official statistics, the percentage of pension payments to gross domestic product (GDP) more than doubled from 2.1% in 2010 to 5.4%, in 2019. Meanwhile, the percentage of social assistance to GDP decreased from 0.97% to 0.80%. The increase of social pension payments to GDP is a combination of rising benefits and rising numbers of retirees. The per capita pension payment was RMB 8144 in 2012, and RMB 18,958 in 2020 with an annual growth rate of 11.1%. Meanwhile, nominal per capita GDP only grew 7.74% annually. This is because of the differences in social spending, and the reduction in income inequality among elderly in China while income inequality among working-age families is stagnant.</p><p>Figure 1 indicates China's social spending relative to other countries. The left panel plots total pension payments as a percentage of GDP, relative to its GDP per capita. This panel shows that China's pension payments are on par with the projected world average indicated by a regression line. However, the right panel of Figure 1 plots the s","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"18 1","pages":"42-44"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12409","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50149197","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The purpose of the present paper is to measure the disadvantage of the vulnerable in contemporary Japan, focusing on their capabilities in moving both outside and inside the home. Our research interest is to find a new informational base other than consumption expenditure, which provides a strong clue about how to assess the eligibility for social support. We examine theoretical methods to apply the capability approach empirically, extending existing multidimensional poverty measurements. We find that people with disabilities and nursing care users are significantly restricted in their capabilities. The elderly in general, whom we have used as a reference group, are also in a precarious situation.
{"title":"What the Welfare State Left Behind—Securing the Capability to Move for the Vulnerable","authors":"Reiko Gotoh, Ryo Kambayashi","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12408","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.12408","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The purpose of the present paper is to measure the disadvantage of the <i>vulnerable</i> in contemporary Japan, focusing on their capabilities in moving both outside and inside the home. Our research interest is to find a new informational base other than consumption expenditure, which provides a strong clue about how to assess the eligibility for social support. We examine theoretical methods to apply the capability approach empirically, extending existing multidimensional poverty measurements. We find that people with disabilities and nursing care users are significantly restricted in their capabilities. The elderly in general, whom we have used as a reference group, are also in a precarious situation.</p>","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"18 1","pages":"124-143"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12408","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50137110","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
<p>Suryahadi <i>et al</i>. (<span>2022</span>) address the challenging task of identifying how income inequality affects trust in others, organizations, and institutions through a cross-section analysis of Indonesia. As previous studies have suggested, the extent of trust is considered an important factor for economic development, for example, by reducing transaction costs. This has led many social scientists to analyze the determinants of trust, but few studies have shed light on the impact of inequality on trust (Gustavsson & Jordahl, <span>2008</span>; Barone & Mocetti, <span>2016</span>). The importance of the topic seems to be even greater under the current Covid-19 pandemic. It has been noted that low trust in governments may lead to vaccine hesitancy (SAGE Working Group on Vaccine Hesitancy, <span>2014</span>), which might have lowered the coverage of Covid-19 vaccination in many countries.</p><p>In order to identify the effects of income inequality on various aspects of trust, Suryahadi <i>et al</i>. construct an impressive dataset comprising various surveys, such as the World Value Survey, the National Socioeconomic Survey (Susenas), Village Census (PODES), and village-level data on estimated poverty and inequality (PovertyMap). Using the informative dataset, Suryahadi <i>et al</i>. reveal statistically significant negative correlations between district-level inequality and trust in political and state institutions. On the other hand, they also find that higher village-level inequality has a negative effect on trust in strangers. The estimation results are intuitively consistent, and Suryahadi <i>et al</i>. provide a useful perspective on the relationship between inequality and trust in Indonesia, though there appear to be some issues that still need to be cleared up.</p><p>First, their cross-section analysis might induce an endogeneity problem. Suryahadi <i>et al</i>. employ ordinary least squares results with reference to endogeneity test outcomes (Suryahadi <i>et al</i>.'s table A.2), which depend on the assumption that their instrumental variable is valid and strong. As Suryahadi <i>et al</i>. are cautious about the results of their analysis, I am still afraid that the inequality variables correlate with the error term (endogeneity). For example, I am concerned that Suryahadi <i>et al</i>. do not control for ethnic diversity among villages in the empirical specifications, while ethnic heterogeneity displays a strong negative correlation with the extent to which people trust each other (Gustavsson & Jordahl, <span>2008</span>; Jordahl, <span>2009</span>).</p><p>Second, in line with the literature, Suryahadi <i>et al</i>. assume that respondents are well acquainted with the objective level of income inequality in their districts and villages. In other words, this means that the subjective perception of inequality is supposed to coincide with, or at least be proportional to, the objective inequality index, but it seems quest
{"title":"Comment on “How Inequality Affects Trust in Institutions: Evidence from Indonesia”","authors":"Takayuki Higashikata","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12407","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.12407","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Suryahadi <i>et al</i>. (<span>2022</span>) address the challenging task of identifying how income inequality affects trust in others, organizations, and institutions through a cross-section analysis of Indonesia. As previous studies have suggested, the extent of trust is considered an important factor for economic development, for example, by reducing transaction costs. This has led many social scientists to analyze the determinants of trust, but few studies have shed light on the impact of inequality on trust (Gustavsson & Jordahl, <span>2008</span>; Barone & Mocetti, <span>2016</span>). The importance of the topic seems to be even greater under the current Covid-19 pandemic. It has been noted that low trust in governments may lead to vaccine hesitancy (SAGE Working Group on Vaccine Hesitancy, <span>2014</span>), which might have lowered the coverage of Covid-19 vaccination in many countries.</p><p>In order to identify the effects of income inequality on various aspects of trust, Suryahadi <i>et al</i>. construct an impressive dataset comprising various surveys, such as the World Value Survey, the National Socioeconomic Survey (Susenas), Village Census (PODES), and village-level data on estimated poverty and inequality (PovertyMap). Using the informative dataset, Suryahadi <i>et al</i>. reveal statistically significant negative correlations between district-level inequality and trust in political and state institutions. On the other hand, they also find that higher village-level inequality has a negative effect on trust in strangers. The estimation results are intuitively consistent, and Suryahadi <i>et al</i>. provide a useful perspective on the relationship between inequality and trust in Indonesia, though there appear to be some issues that still need to be cleared up.</p><p>First, their cross-section analysis might induce an endogeneity problem. Suryahadi <i>et al</i>. employ ordinary least squares results with reference to endogeneity test outcomes (Suryahadi <i>et al</i>.'s table A.2), which depend on the assumption that their instrumental variable is valid and strong. As Suryahadi <i>et al</i>. are cautious about the results of their analysis, I am still afraid that the inequality variables correlate with the error term (endogeneity). For example, I am concerned that Suryahadi <i>et al</i>. do not control for ethnic diversity among villages in the empirical specifications, while ethnic heterogeneity displays a strong negative correlation with the extent to which people trust each other (Gustavsson & Jordahl, <span>2008</span>; Jordahl, <span>2009</span>).</p><p>Second, in line with the literature, Suryahadi <i>et al</i>. assume that respondents are well acquainted with the objective level of income inequality in their districts and villages. In other words, this means that the subjective perception of inequality is supposed to coincide with, or at least be proportional to, the objective inequality index, but it seems quest","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"18 1","pages":"95-96"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12407","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50125489","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
<p>Kanchoochat (<span>2022</span>) takes an institutional approach to explaining the persistence of inequality, poverty, and low growth rates in Thailand over recent decades. He focuses on two institutional transformations: a “structural transformation,” meaning a move away from agriculture, and a “regulatory transformation,” meaning efficiency-enhancing reforms in public administration, decentralization, anti-monopoly policies, and taxation. Kanchoochat argues that the high-growth countries of East Asia, especially Taiwan and South Korea, achieved these two transformations, resulting in higher growth and declining inequality, while Thailand has failed. This is a succinct, elegant, and original approach to an important issue.</p><p>On the structural transformation, Kanchoochat has excellent charts showing the extent of Thailand's failure compared to other Asian countries to move people out of agriculture and to improve productivity. He attributes this failure to two causes: government subsidies of inefficient agriculture, especially since the 1990s, and the continuing role of the farm as a form of social security in the absence of state provision. He suggests that ending subsidies and constructing a comprehensive social security system would overcome the problem. While I would welcome these reforms, I doubt they would achieve a “transformation,” because I think other factors are important in sustaining this inefficient agricultural sector. Most important of all, access to and use of land, the single most important input into agricultural production, is still lumbered with many restrictions. Around 60% of land is still ultimately controlled by government. Large areas are not available for economic use, and others have restrictions on their use (Cripps, <span>2020</span>). Without a far-reaching reform of the tenure system, the potential of agriculture will not be realized. Another restraining factor is the very low rate of public investment in agriculture over the long term.</p><p>On the regulatory transformation, Kanchoochat shows how moves toward democratization, decentralization, and progressive polices on tax and competition foundered on the intransigence of the “traditional elite,” meaning the military, and segments of the bureaucracy, professions, and politically connected entrepreneurs. This alliance created a new institutional framework featuring appointed bodies and the judicial system which blocked or reversed reforms. Kanchoochat argues that change requires a larger role for electoral institutions and a “new social contract” under which citizens will agree to pay more tax and entrepreneurs will be happy with less monopoly. But it is not clear what social forces might drive such changes.</p><p>Kanchoochat, following North, Aoki, and others, argues that institutions are created by human will to form a stable structure for the conduct of everyday life. According to this definition, institutions are susceptible to change but there is a tend
{"title":"Comment on “Siamese Twin Failures: Structural and Regulatory Transformations in Unequal Thailand”","authors":"Pasuk Phongpaichit","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12406","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.12406","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Kanchoochat (<span>2022</span>) takes an institutional approach to explaining the persistence of inequality, poverty, and low growth rates in Thailand over recent decades. He focuses on two institutional transformations: a “structural transformation,” meaning a move away from agriculture, and a “regulatory transformation,” meaning efficiency-enhancing reforms in public administration, decentralization, anti-monopoly policies, and taxation. Kanchoochat argues that the high-growth countries of East Asia, especially Taiwan and South Korea, achieved these two transformations, resulting in higher growth and declining inequality, while Thailand has failed. This is a succinct, elegant, and original approach to an important issue.</p><p>On the structural transformation, Kanchoochat has excellent charts showing the extent of Thailand's failure compared to other Asian countries to move people out of agriculture and to improve productivity. He attributes this failure to two causes: government subsidies of inefficient agriculture, especially since the 1990s, and the continuing role of the farm as a form of social security in the absence of state provision. He suggests that ending subsidies and constructing a comprehensive social security system would overcome the problem. While I would welcome these reforms, I doubt they would achieve a “transformation,” because I think other factors are important in sustaining this inefficient agricultural sector. Most important of all, access to and use of land, the single most important input into agricultural production, is still lumbered with many restrictions. Around 60% of land is still ultimately controlled by government. Large areas are not available for economic use, and others have restrictions on their use (Cripps, <span>2020</span>). Without a far-reaching reform of the tenure system, the potential of agriculture will not be realized. Another restraining factor is the very low rate of public investment in agriculture over the long term.</p><p>On the regulatory transformation, Kanchoochat shows how moves toward democratization, decentralization, and progressive polices on tax and competition foundered on the intransigence of the “traditional elite,” meaning the military, and segments of the bureaucracy, professions, and politically connected entrepreneurs. This alliance created a new institutional framework featuring appointed bodies and the judicial system which blocked or reversed reforms. Kanchoochat argues that change requires a larger role for electoral institutions and a “new social contract” under which citizens will agree to pay more tax and entrepreneurs will be happy with less monopoly. But it is not clear what social forces might drive such changes.</p><p>Kanchoochat, following North, Aoki, and others, argues that institutions are created by human will to form a stable structure for the conduct of everyday life. According to this definition, institutions are susceptible to change but there is a tend","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"18 1","pages":"69-70"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12406","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50122513","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
<p>Suryahadi <i>et al</i>. (<span>2022</span>) is an ambitious and innovative paper. Highlighting the importance of trust as a key ingredient in the process of economic and political development, the authors examine the impact of inequality on trust, and by extension institutions, at the village and district levels in Indonesia.</p><p>The paper has several distinctive features. First, the authors carefully disaggregate the concept of institutions, into economic, social, and political (“the state”) dimensions, plausibly conjecturing that each of these may have different behavioral relationships to the key variables of interest. Second, the analysis is also geographically disaggregated. This adds richness to the study given that Indonesia is the world's largest archipelagic state. Third, they introduce an intermediate variable in the analysis, education, finding that more highly educated individuals' trust in the political and state institutions is more sensitive to higher inequality.</p><p>The authors' main conclusions are reassuring. In general, the levels of trust are high (Suryahadi <i>et al</i>.'s figures 2 and 3), in some cases arguably higher than might have been expected, and mostly rising. Not surprisingly, trust is particularly high for social ties. Evidently, the village respondents are least trusting only toward “strangers.” Financial institutions enjoy high trust; one might surmise that the absence of any major bank crashes in Indonesia this century might contribute to this finding. Trust in governments and the civil service is very high, approaching 80% in 2018. This is perhaps a little unexpected given the endless “coffee shop” discussions of corruption. Nevertheless, in discussing their figure 5 the authors add an important qualifier, that “lower trust does not pertain to political institutions like elections or the parliament, but more on state apparatus.”</p><p>The exceptions to the conclusion of high trust include that across religious communities, not a major surprise in view of the country's occasional religious tensions, and some decline in the press and media, which is a global phenomenon in this era of proliferating “fake news.”</p><p>The finding that trust is comparatively high is also of interest given Indonesia's inequality outcomes. Historically expenditure inequality was moderately low, but it has risen significantly for much of this century. Not surprisingly, therefore, the authors conclude that keeping inequality “in check” is important for healthy institutional development.</p><p>I have several comments on this fine paper, which might be explored in future work on the subject. First, it would be interesting to set out some analytical “priors,” of what one might hypothesize to be the likely relationships. For example, Indonesia has had episodes of quite serious conflict over the past 50 years, including ongoing unrest in the two Papua provinces (which presumably were not in the survey). But they have generally been co
{"title":"Comment on “How Inequality Affects Trust in Institutions: Evidence from Indonesia”","authors":"Hal Hill","doi":"10.1111/aepr.12405","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.12405","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Suryahadi <i>et al</i>. (<span>2022</span>) is an ambitious and innovative paper. Highlighting the importance of trust as a key ingredient in the process of economic and political development, the authors examine the impact of inequality on trust, and by extension institutions, at the village and district levels in Indonesia.</p><p>The paper has several distinctive features. First, the authors carefully disaggregate the concept of institutions, into economic, social, and political (“the state”) dimensions, plausibly conjecturing that each of these may have different behavioral relationships to the key variables of interest. Second, the analysis is also geographically disaggregated. This adds richness to the study given that Indonesia is the world's largest archipelagic state. Third, they introduce an intermediate variable in the analysis, education, finding that more highly educated individuals' trust in the political and state institutions is more sensitive to higher inequality.</p><p>The authors' main conclusions are reassuring. In general, the levels of trust are high (Suryahadi <i>et al</i>.'s figures 2 and 3), in some cases arguably higher than might have been expected, and mostly rising. Not surprisingly, trust is particularly high for social ties. Evidently, the village respondents are least trusting only toward “strangers.” Financial institutions enjoy high trust; one might surmise that the absence of any major bank crashes in Indonesia this century might contribute to this finding. Trust in governments and the civil service is very high, approaching 80% in 2018. This is perhaps a little unexpected given the endless “coffee shop” discussions of corruption. Nevertheless, in discussing their figure 5 the authors add an important qualifier, that “lower trust does not pertain to political institutions like elections or the parliament, but more on state apparatus.”</p><p>The exceptions to the conclusion of high trust include that across religious communities, not a major surprise in view of the country's occasional religious tensions, and some decline in the press and media, which is a global phenomenon in this era of proliferating “fake news.”</p><p>The finding that trust is comparatively high is also of interest given Indonesia's inequality outcomes. Historically expenditure inequality was moderately low, but it has risen significantly for much of this century. Not surprisingly, therefore, the authors conclude that keeping inequality “in check” is important for healthy institutional development.</p><p>I have several comments on this fine paper, which might be explored in future work on the subject. First, it would be interesting to set out some analytical “priors,” of what one might hypothesize to be the likely relationships. For example, Indonesia has had episodes of quite serious conflict over the past 50 years, including ongoing unrest in the two Papua provinces (which presumably were not in the survey). But they have generally been co","PeriodicalId":45430,"journal":{"name":"Asian Economic Policy Review","volume":"18 1","pages":"92-94"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9,"publicationDate":"2022-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aepr.12405","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50153864","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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