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ItemNo Preview AvailableThe political battle over health policy in Indonesia(Ear to Asia: an Asia Institute podcast, 2021-10-12)Ear to Asia podcast What’s at stake and who are the stakeholders in steering health policy in Indonesia? While the right to health for all Indonesians has been embraced by progressive, populist and technocratic political forces in recent years, oligarchic elites with ties to business and the military are now reemerging to thwart further improvements in healthcare for ordinary people. Political economist Prof Andrew Rosser and public policy specialist Dr Luky Djani join presenter Peter Clarke to examine the politics of healthcare in Indonesia. https://www.melbourneasiareview.edu.au/podcasts/the-political-battle-over-health-policy-in-indonesia/
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ItemNo Preview AvailableMeasuring economic transformation: what to make of constant price sectoral GDP: evidence from Vietnam(World Economics Association, 2021)The paper discusses the analysis of economic growth and transformation and the concept of constant price sectoral GDP, usually understood to measure real factor rewards, linked to actual factor inputs. It reviews criticisms of such statistics and statistical conventions underlying GDP data, their focus upon current price factor incomes and implications of the practice of constructing constant price sectoral GDP from revalued net output (gross output less non-factor inputs). Innovatively, it shows how recalculations at constant prices of actual sectoral factor inputs at a year away from the base-year will not necessarily equal revalued gross output less non-factor inputs, the usual basis for such data. The accounting identity that requires their equality only holds for current prices. Therefore, constant price sectoral GDP data does not measure actual factor inputs. Despite this, the analytical frameworks of economists analysing structural transformation often assumes that they have, in constant price sectoral GDP, a measure of actual factor inputs (when they do not). This inhibits analyses from engaging properly with incentives, often disregarding the possibility of disequilibria by adopting a production function approach that, encouraged by the belief that constant price sectoral data measures changes in actual factor inputs, expects technical conditions to determine incentives (factor rewards). The paper shows this risk of confirmation bias by examining work on Vietnam.1
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ItemChina’s Post-Covid Goldilocks Budget – how big should it be?(EAI, 2021-03-18)
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ItemFiscal reform in the Xi Jinping era and the state of local public finance(East Asian Institute, NUS, 2021-07-09)
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ItemWhat’s up with China’s fiscal policy? The puzzle of recent budget data(East Asian Institute, NUS, 2021-09-07)China’s budget data for the first seven months of 2021 sprang some surprises. First, the budget nearly perfectly balances, with ordinary budget revenues amounting to RMB13.77 trillion and expenditures to RMB13.79 trillion. If this trend were to hold for the year, it would mark the first time since 1985 that the government’s general budget has been in or near balance. MOF (Ministry of Finance)-reported expenditures were 3.3% higher than that for the same period in 2020. Due to the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, a better comparison is with the pre-COVID budget of 2019, against which the 2021 expenditures were 1% lower for the same period, with a deep 12.5% cut in central government spending and a small 1% increase in local government spending.
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ItemPlus ça Change: Three Decades of Fiscal Policy and Central–Local Relations in China(NUS Press on behalf of East Asia Institute, 2021-11-01)In China’s decentralised system, vital public services such as health, education and social welfare are provided by local governments. The intergovernmental fiscal system is critical to ensuring local governments are adequately financed. Since 1994, China has overhauled its public finances to create a system able to finance government operations, support economic growth and fund industrial policies and international initiatives. Its Achilles’ heel remains a weak intergovernmental fiscal system that is unable to fund local governments efficiently and equitably. This article analyses local finance through three decades of reform. Despite a promise early in the Xi Jinping administration to realign central–local fiscal relations, local finances have deteriorated since 2015 due to slowing growth, tax cuts and pressures from tightened budget management. Local fiscal difficulties have caused a decline in social spending as a share of gross domestic product. If continued, this trend threatens to reverse recent gains in improving services and undermine other national policy goals.
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ItemSouth Borneo as an ancient Sprachbund area(UNIV INDONESIA, FAC HUMANITIES, 2021)In South and Central Kalimantan (southern Borneo) there are some unusual linguistic features shared among languages which are adjacent but do not belong to the same genetic linguistic subgroups. These languages are predominantly Banjar Malay (a Malayic language), Ngaju (a West Barito language), and Ma’anyan (a Southeast Barito language). The same features also appear to some degree in Malagasy, a Southeast Barito language in East Africa. The shared linguistic features are the following ones: a grammaticalized form of the originally Malay noun buah ‘fruit’ expressing affectedness, nasal spreading in which N- not only nasalizes the onset of the first syllable but also a *y in the next syllable, a non-volitional marker derived from the Banjar Malay prefix combination ta-pa- (related to Indonesian tr- + pr-), and the change from Proto Malayo-Polynesian *s to h (or Malagasy Ø). These features have their origins in the various members of the language configuration outlined above and form a Sprachbund or “Linguistic Area”. The concept of Linguistic Area is weak and difficult to define. Lyle Campbell (2002) considers it little else than borrowing or diffusion and writes it off as “no more than [a] post hoc attempt [...] to impose geographical order on varied conglomerations of [...] borrowings”. While mindful of its shortcomings, the current author still uses the concept as a useful tool to distinguish between
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ItemNo Preview AvailableThe Australian Diaspora(ABC Radio National, 2021-11-23)Harnessing the talents, expertise and contacts of highly skilled Australian expats seems obvious and uncontroversial. So why doesn't Australia have a formal policy that guides how we engage and connect with the diaspora.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableInclusivism and Exclusivism among Muslims Today between Theological and Social Dimensions(RSIS: Singapore, 2021)Inclusivist views about people of other religions or no religion (non-Muslims) are crucial for harmonious interreligious relations in societies that are becoming increasingly diverse. However, in the case of Islam, achieving this is fraught with challenges. Within the Islamic tradition, there are long-held theologically exclusivist views about other religions, such as salvation is only available through Islam and religions other than Islam are invalid. These positions can be referred to as theologically exclusivist and are often difficult to challenge due to their pervasiveness and because they are generally considered key Muslim beliefs. The paper highlights some attempts made by a number of contemporary Muslim thinkers to adopt theologically inclusivist views that challenge such theologically exclusivist positions. However, their views are still seen as too radical for mainstream Muslims and are thus often marginalised. This paper argues that the challenges that theological inclusivists face should not prevent us from adopting inclusivist views about people of other religions or no religion. The emphasis then is on addressing negative ideas about people of other religions that have developed in the Islamic tradition, such as the inequality of non-Muslims to Muslims, and developing positive ideas, such as the equality of all people. Here the focus is on social inclusivism which appears to be a more feasible project. Such a shift from theological inclusivism to social inclusivism is likely to lead to better relations between Muslims and non-Muslims.