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Economic Development Of Southwest And Southeast Asia With Simple But Comprehensive Explanation

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Critical review Perkins delivers his observation of similarities and differences in economic development of Northeast and Southeast Asia with simple but comprehensive explanation. His book is insightful and easy to follow, starts from all countries’ cultural history background to other factors, such as natural resources, geography, institution, education, and industrialisation development. However, there are some critics on the book due to the less emphasizing on equality, inclusiveness, and transition of agriculture sector development. The countries’ histories lead to differences in each country’s political and economic policy, which influence the process of leadership and education as the foundation variables of economic growth …show more content…

29). Inequality problem is not discussed in detail by Perkins, but it is mentioned as one of reason of political instability in Thailand, due to the social gap between people from rural and urban area, which hinder its economic growth. It is consistent with Piketty (2014), that when the share of capitalists increasing in income, over the growth rate of income per capita, the inequality will rise, due to unequal ownership, which then lead to social inequality and political conflicts (pp. 182-183). Stiglitzs (2012) points out that fairness for the individual is crucial and it will motivate protests all over the world when the economic and political system bring the unfairness (p. 10). According to Mankiw (2013), inequality in income should not be the only object of public policy, but the inequality in opportunity should become the primary focus since it might cause inefficiency as well (p.26). Perkins shows Indonesia and Malaysia as sample of countries which suffered from inefficient social welfare allocation that make national development policy ineffective. The inclusiveness, as the crucial part of sustaining growth, is also related to the equality of opportunities when growth is created. No people should be left out and facing extreme inequality of income and education, since it will cause resistance and diverting process of growth through the conflict and political instability (Spence 2011, p. 88). The role of government to lower the income inequality and

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