Papers by Russayani Ismail
EFFECTIVENESS OF POVERTY ALLEVIATION PROGRAM: EVIDENCE FROM MALAYSIA
Malaysia is one of the developing countries that have successfully tackled the problem of poverty... more Malaysia is one of the developing countries that have successfully tackled the problem of poverty. Poverty incidence in Malaysia has declined considerably from 52.4% in 1970 to 3.8% in 2009. The government targeted that poverty incidence to be reduced further to 2.0% by 2015, and hence raises the need to improve the effectiveness of the existing poverty alleviation programs. This paper explores better ways to enhance the effectiveness of poverty programs in Malaysia by seeking the opinion of the poor themselves. We discover that an improvement is needed with respect to access to information, identification of the target group, and adequacy of assistance.
EDUCATION RESEARCH
Equality of opportunity or access to education has always been propagated as a good mechanism to ... more Equality of opportunity or access to education has always been propagated as a good mechanism to reduce economic imbalances between the rich and the poor. This is due to the fact that there is a historic correlation between educational attainment and occupational opportunities. In meeting this objective, the Malaysian government has invested vast amount of fund through subsidisation of education particularly in higher education. In Malaysia, public universities obtain 80-90% of their funds from government grants. Not only the government support the public higher education institutions but it also provides the student support scheme in terms of scholarships and student loans. However with the increasing costs and rapid expansion of higher education, pressure for reform in higher education financing has intensified. Heavy reliance on public funds to finance higher education no longer seems to be an ideal solution. In this regard many countries around the world resort to the concept known as cost recovery. Replacing scholarship by student loans is one of the ways on how cost recovery can be implemented. The introduction of student loans, however, if not properly formulated will discourage or deter less advantaged socio-economic groups from getting access to higher education. In this paper we will discuss some policy options with regard to student support schemes which taking into consideration both efficiency and equity issues.
International Journal of …, Jan 1, 2011
The idea of the trade-off between child quantity and child quality has long been documented in ec... more The idea of the trade-off between child quantity and child quality has long been documented in economics. In the past, this trade-off has been attributed to the rising marginal cost of child quantity and quality. In recent years, this trade-off has been attributed to a declining direct cost of childrearing and an escalating opportunity cost of childrearing induced by rising household income. Exploiting a micro data set from rural Terengganu, we revisit the idea based on this new postulate. Our goal is to investigate whether a rise in household income has a positive impact on child quality and a negative impact on child quantity. In a series of empirical exercises, we find that household income has a positive impact on both child quantity and child quality. We take these findings as evidence that there is no trade-off between child quantity and child quality among rural households in Terengganu, Malaysia.
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The objective of this paper is to examine whether the hypothesis of the child quantity-quality tr... more The objective of this paper is to examine whether the hypothesis of the child quantity-quality trade-off developed by (3] and [4] is borne out by data from a developing country. In particular, this paper tests whether child quantity has a negative impact on child quality (i.e. child's education) using a sample of children data from a recent survey of 2500 households in rural areas in Terengganu, Malaysia. Like previous empirical studies, this study employs an instrumental variable method in a system of two equations, where child quantity is instrumented by an exogenous variation in fertility, namely gender sameness of the first two-born children. In the baseline estimation as well as in a series of robustness check, our key findings are that there is a positive yet insignificant impact of child quantity on child quality. Accordingly, we take these results as weak evidence against the child quantityquality trade-off.
Does social capital induce children educational attainment? Evidence from rural community in Terengganu, Malaysia
Abstract The determinants of educational attainment among children have become one of the main re... more Abstract The determinants of educational attainment among children have become one of the main research agenda among scholars, educationists and economists alike. In most studies, the focus is on the relationship between educational attainment and factors such ...
The Graduate Tax when Education Signals Ability
The importance of higher education services as a new source of income has intensified the effort ... more The importance of higher education services as a new source of income has intensified the effort not only by the developed nations but the developing countries alike, to offer their services to the international students. Most countries recognize that maintaining quality education is crucial as to ensure the long term competitiveness. Quality education signifies a very broad definition and it is vital for each country to correctly identify the factors that really attract international students to pursue their studies in particular places. With regard to the issue, this study attempts to identify the possible factors that may influence the decision making of international student when choosing higher education destination. In order to arrive at the result, we carry out the study by determining the factors that significantly influence the international students to recommend Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) to their friends in their home country. The study is conducted using a sample of 300 international students. The factor analysis and a regression using the logit model are used. The finding suggests that excellent services, pleasant social environment, first class physical infrastructure and high quality of lecturers matter.
Social capital has been widely recognised in the recent development literature to have positive c... more Social capital has been widely recognised in the recent development literature to have positive consequences on societal well being. However, most studies examine the impact of social capital on some narrow indicators of well being such as income, poverty, education and health. While these indicators do measure and represent the standard of living of the society, and are important development objectives, they focus only on the material aspect of well being. Therefore, it does not really shed light on whether social capital is associated with quality of life which is the subjective aspect of well being. This gives rise to the question on whether social capital also leads to better quality of life. This paper attempts to fill this gap by extending the analysis not only on the impact of social capital on income, but also on quality of life. Empirical evidence on the links between social capital and quality of life is provided by performing regression analysis. The analysis is carried out using primary data obtained from a survey of 2500 rural households in Terengganu, Malaysia. The results show that social capital has a significant impact not only on household income but also on quality of life. These results imply that investment in social capital is crucial to achieve development objectives.
Economics of Education: Issues of Transition and …, Jan 1, 2010
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Papers by Russayani Ismail