Public Expenditure and Income Distribution in Malaysia

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.

Mukaramah Harun is Professor at the School of Economics, Finance and Banking, Universiti Utara Malaysia. Sze Ying Loo received her PhD degree from the School of Economics, Finance and Banking, Universiti Utara Malaysia.

1. Introduction; 2. Malaysian Economy, Income Distribution and Public Expenditure; 3. Social Accounting Matrix as a Framework to Analyze the Impact of Public Expenditure on Income Distribution; 4. Analysis on the Impact of Public Expenditure on Income Distribution; 5. Implications for Policy in Public Expenditure; Appendix I. Full Form of Public Expenditure