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Ethnic inequality and poverty in Malaysia since May 1969. Part 2: Poverty

Over the last 50 years, Malaysia has seen one of the fastest rates of income-poverty reduction in the world. This came alongside falling overall income inequality, due in large part to a national policy effort to address ethnic inequalities, in the wake of tragic race riots in 1969. The first paper...

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Main Author: Ravallion, Martin
Format: Article
Published: PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD 2020
Subjects:
HC Economic History and Conditions
Online Access:http://eprints.um.edu.my/36378/
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spelling my.um.eprints.363782023-12-28T13:24:33Z http://eprints.um.edu.my/36378/ Ethnic inequality and poverty in Malaysia since May 1969. Part 2: Poverty Ravallion, Martin HC Economic History and Conditions Over the last 50 years, Malaysia has seen one of the fastest rates of income-poverty reduction in the world. This came alongside falling overall income inequality, due in large part to a national policy effort to address ethnic inequalities, in the wake of tragic race riots in 1969. The first paper in the two-part series examined various measures of ethnic inequality. This second paper assesses the role that changes in between-group inequality played in Malaysia's success against poverty. To address this question, a new decomposition method is applied to survey data spanning 50 years. The results indicate that ethnic redistribution helped reduce poverty, but it was not as important as within-group redistribution or mean-income growth. A pure ethnic redistribution effect is defined and isolated empirically. Sizable potential gains to the country's poor from ethnic redistribution are revealed in the 1970s, suggesting that the early policy effort made sense. The absolute gains have faded over time and are now small, though the elasticity of national poverty to ethnic redistribution remains quite high. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD 2020-10 Article PeerReviewed Ravallion, Martin (2020) Ethnic inequality and poverty in Malaysia since May 1969. Part 2: Poverty. WORLD DEVELOPMENT, 134. ISSN 0305750X, DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105039 <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105039>. 10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105039
institution Universiti Malaya
building UM Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Malaya
content_source UM Research Repository
url_provider http://eprints.um.edu.my/
topic HC Economic History and Conditions
spellingShingle HC Economic History and Conditions
Ravallion, Martin
Ethnic inequality and poverty in Malaysia since May 1969. Part 2: Poverty
description Over the last 50 years, Malaysia has seen one of the fastest rates of income-poverty reduction in the world. This came alongside falling overall income inequality, due in large part to a national policy effort to address ethnic inequalities, in the wake of tragic race riots in 1969. The first paper in the two-part series examined various measures of ethnic inequality. This second paper assesses the role that changes in between-group inequality played in Malaysia's success against poverty. To address this question, a new decomposition method is applied to survey data spanning 50 years. The results indicate that ethnic redistribution helped reduce poverty, but it was not as important as within-group redistribution or mean-income growth. A pure ethnic redistribution effect is defined and isolated empirically. Sizable potential gains to the country's poor from ethnic redistribution are revealed in the 1970s, suggesting that the early policy effort made sense. The absolute gains have faded over time and are now small, though the elasticity of national poverty to ethnic redistribution remains quite high. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
format Article
author Ravallion, Martin
author_facet Ravallion, Martin
author_sort Ravallion, Martin
title Ethnic inequality and poverty in Malaysia since May 1969. Part 2: Poverty
title_short Ethnic inequality and poverty in Malaysia since May 1969. Part 2: Poverty
title_full Ethnic inequality and poverty in Malaysia since May 1969. Part 2: Poverty
title_fullStr Ethnic inequality and poverty in Malaysia since May 1969. Part 2: Poverty
title_full_unstemmed Ethnic inequality and poverty in Malaysia since May 1969. Part 2: Poverty
title_sort ethnic inequality and poverty in malaysia since may 1969. part 2: poverty
publisher PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
publishDate 2020
url http://eprints.um.edu.my/36378/
_version_ 1787133817036734464
score 13.211869

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