Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Malaysia Human Development Report 2013 [UPDATED]

I attended the launch yesterday, which included commentary by the authors, led by YBhg Tan Sri Kamal Salih, and a very lengthy panel discussion.

You can download the full copy here.

This has been a looong time coming as publication was held up for a year. though I’m not a liberty for revealing why. In any case, if you want the very short version, this video explains everything in 2 minutes and 34 seconds:

UPDATE:

Due to bandwidth limitations (too many people have tried to download the report), the MHDR site has been overwhelmed. You can try this alternative link instead to download the report. Warning: it’s a massive 66MB file, so the download could take a while.

13 comments:

  1. broken link hisham....

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    1. broken link hisham:
      Bandwidth Limit Exceeded
      The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit.

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    2. That's not a broken link.What's happened is that too many people have visited the website. I suggest trying again on the 1st

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  2. Hi Hisham, hope you can provide your thoughts on the recent burning issue of 1MDB. I am not an economist or accountant though quite familiar with matters pertaining economy from the business perspective. From what I see, I can't see the reasons behind the controversy though I do see there are things they could have done better in terms of communication and transparency. Would appreciate your impartial views on this matter.

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  3. it's not loading because of a reached bandwidth limit. :)

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  4. Hisham, maybe your readers might want to use a different link for the MHDR2013 report, since the first link has been jammed even after three bandwidth increments by UNDP. They have set up a second link. Try the following : https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9Jvgrg6hrIeOUE2Wi1PbVR3NDQ/view?pli=1

    Kamal Salih
    kamalsalih.blogspot.com

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    1. Tan Sri, thank you. The post link has been updated.

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    2. Tan Sri, it might help if you can suggest to UNDP to get the pdf file compressed further. 66MB is a rather excessive file size.

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  5. This is being rubbished in certain rightwing blogs.

    What is sad is that these same bloggers can't offer a detailed and factual rebuttal of the said MHDR 2013.

    It's amazing (and scary, not in a nice way) how every issue these days gets scrutinised through the prisms of race and religion.

    It seems that there is increasingly little space for reasoned and sober arguments, commentaries and views these days.

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    Replies
    1. @bee farseer

      Name and shame. Point me to them; we'll engage them directly.

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  6. Hi, so sorry, Pardon any ignorance on my part, but one of the key points of the report is that productivity is outstripping wages. Does that mean that capital is in effect gaining disproportionately to labour? Free-marketer that I am, I have always thought that markets should not be interfered with lest wage increase outstrip productivity gains. Hmm... But productivity increases outstripping wage gains... That should be cause for market intervention, which would increase the size of the pie and be better for every one in the long run? Here in Singapore, the traditional fear has been wages outstripping productivity increases. Is that true in your opinion? Also, is there a danger of slippery slope arguments for this kind of intervention (forced wage increases) ie. now it is useful but then workers will always want increases hereafter even when they have not become more productive. Thanks so much.

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    1. @The Slug

      Something for you to ponder:

      GDP per capita (aka productivity) in Singapore is slightly higher than it is in the US. Yet the wage to GDP ratio in the US (around 60%) is half again as high as it is in Singapore (about 42%), despite the fact that Singapore has a workforce that is at least as educated and actually more experienced (higher median age).

      This isn't unusual - there are quite a few more examples of these types of productivity/labour income differences.

      Focusing on the rate of productivity/wage increases diverts attention from what the fair level of labour compensation should be.

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