Malaysian development strategy - review and future alternative

Abstract

Evaluative studies of development programs in developing countries have been especially critical of the practice of planning and evaluating development in terms of a single dimension such as gross national product. Seers has suggested that increases in national income are secondary to how that income is distributed in measuring the impact of development. Kocher agrees with Seers on the importance of including the equality dimension and he defines development as a "process of (1) general improvement in levels of living, together with (2) decreasing inequality of income distribution and (3) capacity to sustain continous improvements over time". However, at times economic development has been regarded as similar to economic growth, that is if the economy grows, then development follows. This may not necessarily be true. We can generate economic growth whereby the gross national income increases by concentrating the investment on a few activities and hoping that the rapid expansion of say a large scale corporate manufacturing sector could bring bountiful benefits to the nation, a basis for further growth and rapid capital accumulation, full employment, higher levels of living for the entire population, a breakthrough into modernity but in effect, in terms of spill-over for development to the rest of the economy, is minimal. What we are interested is therefore to generate Growth with Development as that defined by Kocher.