Tag: cash transfers

Categories
Economics Politics & government

[2970] Politics of living costs and the inevitable language of austerity

Extraordinarily, the Economy Minister has been holding press conference for every consumer price index release in the past few months. Extraordinary, because in the past, CPI releases were treated with silence by the government, and from time to time, cited in largely unread government press statements. But the new Minister, Rafizi Ramli, is focused on cost of living issues. He sees CPI statistics as a way to regularly talk about it.

He is not alone in focusing on living costs. Information Minister, Fahmi Fadzil in an interview recently said:

“The people don’t really care about the slogan, they care about the cost of living, prices of goods and internet access. Therefore, it is essential for every minister and ministry to act immediately to resolve issues of concern to the people.” [Fahmi: ‘Govt to solve people’s issues through Malaysia Madani concept’. Bernama. New Straits Times. January 25 2023]

A very, very short history of living costs politics

Component parties of Pakatan Harapan (and previously Pakatan Rakyat) have a long history of stressing on living costs politics. When energy prices were high in the late 2000s, DAP, Pas and PKR were pressing on the cost-of-living buttons furiously, and that played well to popular anger at that time.

Furthermore, the focus on living costs is a way to shift attention away from race and religion, towards more welfare-based issues. That shift is something to be welcomed, definitely.

Regression in policy

But as I have written earlier, while living costs deserve attention, the the politics of living costs is counterproductive in many ways. Such politics is the reason why policy progress Malaysia made in the past 10-15 years with respect to welfare policy has been partially reversed. Specifically, I am referring to the shift from subsidies to cash transfers. Cash transfers in many ways superior to subsidies in terms of welfare enhancing. Therefore, blanket subsidies and cash transfers are meant to be competing policies.

Yet, now, we have both and the government for the past 5 years have taken the two as complementary. The confused policy mix is proving to be expansive. And it does not help that the government is scared of new taxes, and prefer hard-to-implement-but-low/unstable-revenue taxes to easier-and-high/stable-revenue ones, which causes a severe fiscal constraint.

Rafizi, who previously was a strong believer in blanket petrol subsidies, appears to have walked back, perhaps after realizing the state of government finance, He, along with Prime Minister-Finance Minister Anwar Ibrahim, are now talking about targeted subsidies instead, which has been discussed since at least 2019, not long after blanket subsidies were reintroduced. But having both targeted subsidies and cash transfers are still a confused policy mix. The ideal would be to move to cash transfers fully.

Politics of living costs almost always means large subsidies

The politics of living costs is counterproductive because, with its logical framework, the easiest way to address it is through subsidies and price controls. Other ways—wage hikes for one, or competition regulations—are much harder to implement and takes longer to be realized. The thing with subsidies is (in some ways cash transfers too, but at least cash transfers is much, much more efficient in enhancing welfare while it can always be clawed back via taxes if the wrong persons received it), it tends to take resources away from other things, like funding healthcare, investing and maintenance infrastructure or building defense capabilities in a region has been taking peace too much for granted.

You cannot solve these structural long-term things, if politics of living costs that is always in the now, is the ultimate priority.

The language of austerity

Since such politics takes resources away from many things, it sets the tone of belt-tightening: pay cuts, no pay, RM1.5 trillion government debt (and liabilities), etc. When there is so little left for anything else, usually, a lot of people would be scared and pull back what they could, except subsidies.

Anwar Ibrahim, at a forum in Jakarta, quipped that Malaysia was no longer the country of the 1990s in response to a request by an Indonesia luminary for more Malaysian scholarship for Indonesian students.

Rafizi, just this week, said:

“It is like an overweight person. You know your ideal weight and you constantly remind yourself that you are getting worse,” he said at a forum titled ‘Resetting the Malaysian economy’ organised by Parliament.

“The solution is simple. You need to eat less. If you want to eat a lot, you need to run more. Doctors, gyms will tell you that. Most struggle despite the diagnosis.

“That’s where we are as a country. With the current fiscal trajectory, things will get worse. It takes a lot of courage, political will and cohesion with all stakeholders (to carry out changes).”

[Fixing economy like fat person trying to lose weight, says Rafizi. Joel Shasitiran. FMT. January 27 2023]

Fat. Diet. Those are words one typically associates with austerity. We do not have austerity, but using this kind of language, it would impress many that there is one.

And the source of this language, and the wider fiscal problem the government faces is the politics of living costs.

This second Pakatan Harapan government appears to be repeating some of the mistakes of the first Pakatan Harapan government: too much focus on government financial burden that it was accused of running austerity policies, despite the fact, clearly, there was no austerity at play.

Categories
Economics

[2902] e-Tunai Rakyat under Stimulus 2020 is gravely flawed

For the most parts, the point of having a stimulus is to encourage spending, especially domestically. Someone’s spending is someone else’s income. This is a corollary to the necessacity of a stimulus being timely in order to be effective.

The Ministry of Finance under Lim Guan Eng has been working on all of the measures, but with the political maneuvering over the weekend, he did not get a chance to defend them. Near the end of the stimulus preparation sprint, the PMO had full control of the process though they had no real time to revamp anything, except by cancelling measures or quibbling with minor details. Some of the quibbling involved unenlightened changes to the e-Tunai Rakyat design.

The e-Tunai Rakyat in its current stimulus form as announced by the Prime Minister will like fail to meet any stimulus purpose. As revealed yesterday, cash transfer recipients under the Bantuan Sara Hidup or BSH would receive RM50 in the form of e-Tunai. Given the qualification, that means up to potentially 3.9 million people would receive the RM50.

Here is the qualification, based on the exact wording from the stimulus measure book:

30. In the spirit of shared prosperity, the Government will enhance BSH as follows:

i) bring forward BSH payment of RM200 scheduled by May 2020 to be paid in March 2020;
ii) additional one-off cash payment of RM100 will be made to all BSH recipients in May 2020; and
iii) a further RM50 will be subsequently channelled through e-tunai.

There is one big problem here: giving e-Tunai to BSH recipients would very likely result with little of that money being spent. The fact is many of BSH receipts who are largely members of the bottom 40% of Malaysians in terms of income do not own mobile devices capable of facilitating mobile and electronic transactions. Without such devices, there can be no transactions.

For a better policy design, we should look no farther than the first e-Tunai Rakyat program executed by the Finance Ministry in January 2020. That government program could benefit up to 15 million Malaysians aged 18 and above, who earned less than RM100,000 yearly. With the program ending in mid-March 2020, the current statistics have it that 6.9 million people have claimed the money. That translates into a use rate of 46% out of total eligible recipients after nearly 2 months of operation.

Remember, it reached 46% utilization, likely hitting 50% by the end of the program, because the money with an expiry date (policy innovation!) went to many whom use smartphones. If we limited it to a group that has very low smartphone penetration rate, that utilization rate will come down. Now, you can encourage the program among the low income groups, but this is not the right way.

Therefore, the stimulus form of e-Tunai Rakyat, mutilated as it is, with its smaller reach among the low-income demography would likely struggle to follow the same trajectory and success. It has been mistargeted to the point of irrelevance. This defeats the purpose of having e-Tunai Rakyat as a stimulus. It is a grave design flaw, making the program incapable of hitting any stimulus objective. It is not even a good signalling.

The solution to this: return to the original MOF design, or repurpose the money to something else.

Categories
Economics

[2737] Tiered fuel subsidy regime won’t work. Cash transfer is better

I rarely agree with Rafizi Ramli on policy matters. His advocacy for free tertiary education is an example; I think there has to be cost to education and if help is required, it has to be selective based on needs, not through blanket means which can have disastrous effect on public finances. His suggestion for the auctioning of approved permits for imported vehicle is another; auctions it will make things more transparent but it will not cut car prices down. But I do agree with him on some other issues and his position on the tiered vehicle-fuel subsidy regime as proposed by the government is reasonable.

He does not think well of it and I think the proposed system is horrible.

As reported in the papers, low-income consumers will enjoy full subsidy, mid-income consumers will get a quota of subsidized fuel and those in the high-income brackets will have to pay the unsubsidized price.[1]

Rafizi argues those enjoying full subsidy can resell their fuel to other groups at a price higher than the subsidized level but below market price. I think so too. The government can make such transfers illegal but being illegal does not mean it will not happen. And I cannot imagine the authority spending considerable resources to hunt down on a whole lot of Malaysians trying to benefit from such loophole in the tiered system. Rafizi has explained it rather well and so, if you want more explanation I suggest you give his blog a read.[2]

Because of the major loophole, I am not so convinced there will be any savings from the restructuring at all. In an efficient market faced with such tiered regime, people will buy subsidized fuel through the low income group (the new middle man) only. So, the cost of the government maintaining the proposed much-more-complicated system can be as expensive as, if not more than, the current simplistic blanket subsidy system. It can be as expensive because the quantity of subsidized fuel purchased will not go down in an efficient market. It can be more because you have to keep a more complex control system for the system to really work. If you want to fight post-sale transactions, then you will have to consider enforcement cost, on top of the actual fuel subsidy cost itself.

We do not live in an efficient market but I can easily imagine a lot of people doing it, if not all. This is already happening for subsidized diesel that companies enjoy from the government. The smuggling of fuel to outside of Malaysia is another proof that it is already happening. These two examples are example of tiered markets.

And remember, the beneficiary of the proposed tiered system is the lower-income households. They need the money. They have a strong incentive to resell their subsidized fuel to others who do not have access to it. Others in the mid-income brackets can be as saving-driven as others. There is an uncaptured producer (or is it consumer?) surplus there and it makes sense to internalize that surplus. The only who will not care are the super-rich who cannot be bothered with the hassle (unless they organize a smuggling business themselves, eh?).

It helps the low-income households, but that is such an expensive and a complex way to do it.

I prefer the plain old subsidy cut to the tiered subsidy (though I think Rafizi disagrees with this). Plain old subsidy cuts guarantees savings.

And if we want to help the low-income households, I prefer cash transfer, like I have always for the longest time. We already have the BR1M program. Just improve on the infrastructure. Cash it directly into the bank accounts of these low-income households. If they do not have an account, create one for them. Address the abuse and corruption instead. No need to get overly creative on this matter.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reservedMohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reservedMohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

[1] — KUALA LUMPUR: Only those with a monthly income of below RM5,000 and cars with an engine capacity below 2,000cc will be entitled to unrestricted purchase of subsidised petrol under the new petrol subsidy system, according to a report by Sin Chew Daily yesterday. The report said the target is to launch the new system in the third quarter of this year. Those who earn between RM5,000 and RM10,000 per month will only be able to purchase 300 litres of subsidised diesel and RON95 petrol per month, the Chinese daily said in the report. Those with a monthly income of RM10,000 and above will have to purchase RON97 petrol, which will be based on market prices and without any subsidy. [Fuel subsidies to be means tested, says Sin Chew. The Edge. June 3 2014]

[2] — Berdasarkan maklumat yang dilaporkan setakat ini, saya khuatir sistem subsidi baru petrol dan diesel ini akan mewujudkan pasaran gelap yang menjual petrol dan diesel seperti berikut:

1. Kumpulan yang dibenarkan membeli petrol dan diesel pada harga subsidi boleh membeli secara kerap dan menyimpan petrol dan diesel ini;

2. Mereka kemudian menjual kepada ejen pasaran gelap yang membeli petrol dan diesel ini pada harga yang lebih tinggi;

3. Ejen pasaran gelap kemudian menjual petrol dan diesel ini pada harga yang lebih rendah dari harga pasaran kepada syarikat, pengusaha atau pun orang persendirian yang mahu mendapatkan harga petrol dan diesel pada harga yang lebih rendah. [Sistem Subsidi Baru Petrol & Diesel: Risiko Penyelewengan Dan Kesan Berganda Kenaikan Harga Barang. Rafizi Ramli. June 3 2014]

Categories
Economics

[2154] Of introduce targeted cash transfer instead of targeted subsidy

In spite of opposition that saw the streets of Kuala Lumpur filled with pro-fuel subsidy groups during the Abdullah administration, efforts to liberalize the fuel subsidy regime have gone a long way. Several arguments, including one that criticizes the untargeted and blanket nature of the policy have gained tremendous traction. The fact that it benefits those who do not need or deserve the subsidy is clearly one of the main motivators — the bigger drivers are probably cost and waste — behind the reformation of the policy.

The Najib administration is addressing this particular criticism. That has resulted in multiple novel moves and proposals from the federal government. Among the proposals reported in the mainstream media are different prices for different groups, a cap on subsidized fuel consumption and access to subsidy based on engine size. All of it tries to discriminate consumers at the pump. While the moves and proposals may reduce the size of fuel subsidy either in value or in quantity, the proposals under explicit fuel subsidy regime are too convoluted. The more convoluted the methods are, the more complex the implementation will be. That is a recipe for a disaster, policy wise.

I appreciate the government’s effort at making the policy more targeted and hence, making it less wasteful in terms of opportunity cost. Yet, these novel ways are unnecessary given the existence of at least one simpler alternative.

Just observe the recent attempt to limit the sale of subsidized fuel to foreigners at the border. So complicated was it that everybody was confused and in the end, it did not work. Consumers found ways around the restriction.

There is a better and much simpler way to do to this.

Before we proceed to that better and simpler policy, it is crucial for us to recall the purpose of the fuel subsidy. Its goal is ultimately to reduce the cost of living of the less well-to-do Malaysians. On top of that, fuel subsidy is not the only way to achieve that goal.

With that in mind, the better alternative to targeted fuel subsidy is a simple targeted cash transfer from the government to those who deserve it.

Why targeted cash transfer?

The first reason is that it paves the way for total elimination of fuel subsidy to free up the market. Since free prices signal scarcity, individuals and entities will make decisions that are more reflective of the reality of the energy market. On top of that, it creates real competition among pump owners. The same system of free prices already exists in the United States and Australia. Its effectiveness is proven.

Not only that, elimination of subsidy at the pump reduces consumption, all else being constant. That means lower carbon emissions. In times when carbon emissions are a worldwide concern and in light of the Najib administration’s promise to announce a carbon cut roadmap in the near future, this is an opportunity to integrate transportation and energy policies together environmental policy. Such integration is important given that, according to the International Energy Agency in 2007, the transportation sector was the source of 30 per cent of Malaysia’s carbon dioxide emissions in 2005.

Thirdly, cash can be used for a variety of things and not just fuel. Maybe a beneficiary of such a cash transfer appreciates books or food more than fuel. This has the potential of increasing the beneficiary’s welfare higher than what a fuel subsidy policy can bring. If the beneficiary does appreciate fuel more than anything else, then he or she can simply buy the same amount of fuel he or she would have otherwise bought under the fuel subsidy policy. In other words, there are more choices. The economics behind cash transfer is clearly more welfare enhancing than a simple fuel subsidy.

The next question is, naturally, how to do it.

If the sale of subsidized fuel is to be limited, then the government will have a good idea about the maximum amount of money it needs to spend on fuel subsidy. Furthermore, the lower the cap, the higher the likelihood a beneficiary of the subsidy will exhaust his or her quota. From there on, certain statistical manipulations can give us the size of money transfer per capita required to make the cash transfer method the equivalent of the fuel subsidy policy in terms of value.

The cash transfer itself can be delivered to the deserving via the existing tax system. Here is another beauty of cash transfer. It pays only to those who have filed their taxes. Thus, this is yet another incentive for those who have yet to file their tax to finally do so.

For those who just want to fill up their vehicles, here is another reason to support a simple cash transfer instead of an explicit targeted fuel subsidy policy: no weird rule at the pump. With cash transfer, any discriminative method used to ensure that the policy is targeted is done not at the pump but during the transfer of cash. This makes its implementation simpler.

So, what about it that is not to like?

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

A version of this article was first published in The Malaysian Insider on January 19 2010. Unlike the TMI edition, I added several sentences and phrases here to emphasize or rather, to clarify that the cash transfer is targeted in a sense that whatever discriminative method introduced in a subsidy regime can be applied to cash transfer system.