Publications

This book chronicles the latest developments in Malaysia’s trade and investment policy and situates them against the backdrop of a multiplicity of forces—political, economic and technological—reshaping the competitive landscape within which Malaysian traders and investors operate at the national, regional and global levels.

Can money buy happiness? Is money the only thing that makes you happy? These are some of the questions that we may have heard or maybe even asked our friends during casual conversations. Richard Easterlin, professor of economics at the University of Southern California, first suggested in 1974, that life happiness increases with average income only up to a certain point beyond which it does not increase (Easterlin 1974, 1995). In other words, the positive correlation between happiness and income is only short-term (Boo, Yen, and Lim 2016). Reisch (2001) agrees with Easterlin and states that “beyond a certain income level, the marginal utility of more available time is higher than the marginal utility of more available income”. There are many more components to happiness and well-being other than income, with time being one of the key elements.

This report aims to give readers an empirical view of the supply side of the Malaysian economy, using an input-output (IO) table approach.

Pick up any economics textbook in store today and it is likely that one would find in it a stylised, homogenised picture of how an economy ought to function. Economics taught in classrooms generally offer simplified templates of how markets work, market dynamics under different sets of scenarios and conditions, and sources of market failure with measures to address them. Real economies however, rarely conform to any single economic model cleanly.When one looks at the experience of Malaysia, with its mostly unconventional economic story, one would find it hard to fit Malaysia into the standard narrative in the textbooks. As we welcome the seventh decade of Independence, Malaysians will rightly want to reflect on the progress this nation has made so far – the actions and consequences of policies made in the past and the trajectory of the nation’s evolution as it embraces the future.