Category: Economics

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[2576] Life and commerce in Siem Reap, Cambodia

I have always known about the atrocity of the Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia but before I traveled to Cambodia, that knowledge was superficial. I only began to learn more about the conflict when I found myself in Cambodia for two weeks recently. Being there almost made the knowledge into an emotional experience for me.

To fully understand the history, I think one has to read up Cambodian history since its late French colonial days. That is so because each event led to another and finally in 1975, the Khmer Rouge came to power. It was a reaction to yet another reaction but that fact does not justify what the Khmer Rouge did.

Apart from its political desire that also contributed to the massacre of the Cambodian people and those in the Khmer Rouge themselves later, its communist, understanding, forcefully changed the economy and the demography of Cambodia for the worse. It was disastrous, as it was disastrous with the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China.

The regime was not ashamed to centrally planned the economy, forcing all to work in the countryside as slaves and victims of communism. Without exaggeration in the case of Cambodia, communism kills. The cities were deserted so that the communists could realize a stupid ideal of “peasant economy”. Doctors, engineers and professionals were all forced to till the land in the countryside. The cities were left to those in power, and those whom were being tortured to satisfy the paranoia of the Khmer Rouge and ultimately, the circle of Pol Pot. The cities became ghost towns.

The Khmer Rouge regime fell in 1979. By that time I visited the country in 2012, what was a rich country has only begun to make its way in this world again.

Cambodia was a rich country. Its temple ruins are evident enough. Phnom Penh the capital has traces of its pre-Khmer Rouge glory.

Some of the Cambodians I talked to rued how Cambodia was richer than Vietnam before the Khmer Rouge period. Now, Vietman is ahead in so many ways. My traveling partner whom has been in Vietnam several times for an extended period, confirmed this. There are more buildings and vehicles in Vietnam than there are in Cambodia.

While that is so, traces of communism are being overwhelmed by its better nemesis.

In Siem Reap up north where most the temples of Angkor are, commerce, the voluntary exchange of goods and services by individuals, is everywhere.

Some rights reserved. Creative Commons 3.0. By Attribution. By Hafiz Noor Shams

Under communism of the Khmer Rouge, that was illegal. Under communism, there was no life.

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Economics Society

[2573] A pretty sizable legal migration into Malaysia between 2000 and 2010

I was reading, or rather re-reading, the Economic Transformation Program and I was a bit obsessed with its projection of 3.3 million total new jobs between whenever the program was supposed to begin up to year 2020. The figure sounds a bit too optimistic that I do not think there will enough workers to take up the jobs, especially  the geometric average growth between 2000 and 2010 was just below 2.0% per year and when population growth for 2010 was at the measly 1.5% per year. The population growth rate is slowing down.

So, I did a bit of investigation and was planning to do some back-of-the-envelope modeling until a different but related matter attracted my attention. It is the population profile for Malaysia.

The chart was pulled directly from the Department of Statistics because I was too lazy to pull out the numbers from a database available to me at work. It was already 5PM at the time I started writing this and I did not want to stay in the office for too long today, especially when I had to pack my belongings to catch a plane early the day after tomorrow.

Anyway, what interested me here was the population increase. Specifically, population increase according to cohorts.

The chart shows how important (legal) immigration is to Malaysian population growth.

How do you spot immigration from the graph?

Well, under an autarkic case where there is no immigration, it is impossible for a cohort in a particular year to increase in size in later years.

Yet, if you look at the chart, all cohorts between 0 and 34 actually increased in size in the 10 years that passed between the two population surveys (2000 and 2010). To be clear, the 0-34 cohorts in 2000 should be compared with those aged from 10 to 44 in 2010.

There are two explanations that I can think of. One, which is less likely or probably insignificant, error in one of the surveys, or both. Two, which is likelier, is immigration.

That was a pretty sizable legal immigration between 2000 and 2010. Easily more than 1 million legal immigrants in 10 years.

Most of the immigrants were in their prime years. In other words, they were young, productive and probably contributed to economic growth.

But there is one peculiarity. Look at the 65-69 cohort in 2000. In 2010, the above 75-year-old cohort increased. Odd is it not? Or maybe Malaysian longevity is getting really good.

Other cohorts exhibited a decreasing trend.

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Economics Personal Politics & government

[2572] The bitterness of a financial conservative

I handle my finances conservatively. I spend very little for someone my age and my profile. In fact, I impose a sort of limit on my spending. I am conscious of it and get mildly nervous if my total spending grows too fast even when I can more than afford it.

I probably do buy too much insurance and I do save or invest a large part of my earnings. My credit card service provider probably hates me for having to finance me without getting the chance to charge me interest too often too much.

I can afford to save a lot partly because I do not have too many financial responsibilities.

The other factor behind my saving habit has a lot to do with my upbringing and education.

As a very young school kid, I never really needed to spend too much. Canteen food was clearly subsidized. I rarely asked my parents for expensive items.

The more important thing was that my parents did not give me a generous allowance when I was in primary school. My pocket money was very little. Not that I needed too much anyway but at that age, the limited pocket money effectively curbed any spending impulse I might have then. I was always mindful of my limits. It trained me to be financially prudent.

The same was true as I attended a boarding school in Kuala Kangsar; I rarely had expensive lunches or dinners. Meals were again subsidized and there was rarely a need to spend lavishly in a small rural royal town in Perak. While my allowance did increase, it was definitely less than that of my more well-off peers. I lived spartanly then. This continued during my undergraduate years in America. Formal lessons in economics further solidified my attitude towards personal finance.

During my time living abroad, I did learn to enjoy the finer things in life, but I rarely, if ever, overspent. I rarely overspend still.

So, I can say with certainty that I live by the morality of a financial conservative very strictly.

I think I can say without too much pretension that I am an economist. I understand the various reasons for fiscal deficits. Some of the causes for deficit are justifiable, and some are not. I do understand how the government is not a household in a way that the government can do certain things beyond typical household economics, the point which many defenders of the roles of government in society rush to in deflecting criticism against many facets of government spending. After six years of education in economics, I do not think I need too much schooling in that matter excessively.

Rather, put the economics aside and understand the psychology instead. Understand the worldview of a financially conservative taxpayer.

The state of federal government finance does not impress a person like me. Deep inside, I do feel something along the lines of ”if I can do it, why can’t Putrajaya?” It is a dismissive attitude towards the federal government. It is a damning judgment against a failure to adhere to certain brands of secular morality.

It is a kind of sentiment that is almost always in the background. It is the ever-present demand for financial discipline. Putrajaya violates this conservative morality so blatantly. Each violation accumulates further moral condemnation.

What further justifies the dismissive attitude is the inevitability that the indiscipline — add in the irresponsible economic populism that has happened throughout the year and earlier — will one day, one way or another, result in higher tax on the conservative, and everybody else, sooner or later. Whether I like it or not, I, will have to finance the fiscal indiscipline of Putrajaya.

That fuels my bitterness towards Putrajaya.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved
First published in The Malaysian Insider on July 26 2012.

Categories
Economics

[2571] Cars, duties, congestion, pollution, revenue and income effect

Several new points were raised with regards to my post on duties and cars yesterday. One was pollution, two was government revenue and three, in one way or another, income effect. It is not exactly income effect but close enough.

Concern number one is easy. But let us state the pollution concern. The concern is that there is already too many cars on the streets and there is a need to reduce pollution, which I take as carbon and other greenhouse gases emissions. I also take that as actually reducing the number of cars. But here is the thing, substitution to foreign cars may actual reduce emissions without having to reduce the number of car on the roads. The reason is that comparable foreign cars-European, Japanese and possibly Korean-have higher emission standard than locally-produced cars. With more competition, consumers have a chance to choose emission-efficient cars over relative gas-guzzlers without too much price variation. End result: less emission given the quantity of cars.

Concern number two deserves a very libertarian answer. Cut government spending instead. The duties on foreign cars were always meant as protectionist measure, not primarily for revenue-generating purpose. The revenue derived from the duties should really be considered as a bonus. Except that the government is so used to it, that it forgets. With the fiscal discipline, they need the bonus. One way to cut spending is to cut fuel subsidy. In fact, tax it. Yes, tax fuel purchase.

Concern number three is harder to address and I actually thought about it but ultimately decided to not touch it. As try to explain it below, you will understand why I decided against touching it.

Income effect (not exactly but close) or specifically, the new competitive environment may push prices down across the board. This may be true and I have alluded to this in an article I wrote for The Malaysian Insider earlier. In turn, this may increase vehicles on the road as more are able to purchase cars. Or it may not. There is a sound theoretical case for an increase, but there is also a sound theoretical case for the opposite.

Initially, I wanted to address this in terms of stickiness and temporally. In English, prices will adjust only slowly to a new reality. More technically, all-in prices of domestic cars are sticky and that of foreign cars are not.

Why do I apply stickiness on domestic cars but not foreign cars? It is because the abolition or the reduction of duties is easy to calculate. It is on top of the car price in the sense that pre-duties prices are associated with the way companies run their business. It is this pre-tax, pre-duties prices that are sticky.

Most of domestic car prices are made up of sticky components. For foreign-manufactured cars, a significant portion of its end prices are made up of non-sticky components, i.e. the tax and the duties. This is why I apparently apply stickiness only on domestic cars. In truth, I am applying stickiness on both domestic and foreign cars while taking into account domestic cars have significantly less portion of non-sticky components than foreign cars, within the context of import duties abolition.

Also, consider this. The net earnings of Proton in 2011 was not even 2% of its revenue. How much room Proton has for a serious price war? Not much in the near future. This, I think, is an indication that there is a price floor: there is not much incentive to push price of sedans down too much beyond whatever Proton is charging. Proton cannot charge less anyway.

So, in the short term, the specific income effect will not be present. And no traffic congestion issue.

The long term issue is hard to say. It depends on non-cooperation (it is quite possible for firms to achieve implicit understanding in price settings without getting into trouble with anti-trust law).

Ultimately, it depends on how efficient those under pressure can be. What is certain is that that takes time.

It also depends on how low prices would get. I have not done the calculation but I have a feeling, both Proton’s small margin and game theory will provide a floor how low prices can get. And foreign manufacturers definitely would not want to price their cars so low as to earn a loss. Furthermore, that would be dumping and they will get into trouble with that.

So, in the long run, it may, or it may not have effect on congestion.

Besides, if there would be worse congestion, it would be very naive to think there is no other accompanying policy to address it. I have one immediately in my mind: congestion fee within the cities.

Categories
Economics

[2570] Abolition of import duties on foreign cars will not increase congestion because there is substitution effect

I advocate the abolition, or at least a significant reduction of import duties (and other excessive taxes) on cars as well as the abolition of the approved permits system that blow up the prices of foreign-manufactured cars to an outrageous level. This should come at no surprise because I am a libertarian. I do generally support freer trade. Make no mistake, the policy on cars is a protectionist policy.

There is a concern that if duties on imported cars are slashed down significantly or abolished entirely, this will exacerbate traffic congestion in Malaysian cities. At first, this sounds like a very big and legitimate concern. It is not.

If one understands that the duties are imposed on foreign marques and that there is such a thing as  substitution effect, one will understand that the concern on worsening traffic congestion is misplaced. I suspect it is almost always raised by those without enough formal education in microeconomics.

Do understand that imposition of high duties are on foreign cars. This is the nuance. Too many talk as if it is applied across the board, including on Proton and Perodua marques. The peril of generalization is that you lose the nuance.

The duties make domestically-produced cars cheaper than foreign cars and this should be a no-brainer.

It is no coincident that a majority of cars on Malaysian roads are Protons and Peroduas. Malaysians buy Protons and Peroduas because those cars are cheap. There are not too many of those who can buy more expensive cars. If I recall correctly, the number of Protons and Peroduas and other locally-produced cars dwarf the number of foreign-manufactured cars in this country. I do not have the statistics at home but I do have it at the office. I will share it tomorrow and correct my assertion if it is proven to be incorrect.

If foreign cars are suddenly competitively priced after the abolition of various pre-exisiting duties imposed, new buyers will be tempted to purchase those foreign cars, which are many ways of higher quality than Proton at least. Perodua probably can stand up within its market niche.

Now, if the duties persist, these new purchasers would probably buy Protons and Peroduas.

Notice that there will be purchases of car anyway.

To put it in clearer terms, if the status quo remains, people will buy local cars. If it does not much to the benefits of Malaysian consumers, they will buy higher quality foreign cars. For those whom would have bought foreign cars anyway, it does not matter as far as traffic congestion is concerned. They would still buy their cars. It is not about discriminated duties that Malaysia has that I along with others like-minded persons want abolished.

So, the concern for traffic will exist as long as Malaysians purchase cars and it really does not matter whether the duties are abolished. The trend for greater quantity of cars on the road is really a secular one. It has to do with affluence growth and population growth more than anything, and the availability of a reliable public transport system within this context.

Those who argue that the traffic condition will worsen if those duties are removed just do not understand that those cars are substitute goods.

This does not mean the abolition of import duties do not matter. It matters in terms of welfare. It matters in terms of competition. It matters in a lot of other more important ways. But not in terms of congestion.