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Sotheeswari Somasundram · Murali Sambasivan · Ratneswary Rasiah · Tee Pei-Leng ·Institutions and Economies ·2018 ·JEL: 053; R11; C43; J130; 018

The urban community in Malaysia is facing rapid urbanisation and have been the beneficiary of urban development policies. The key purpose of these policies has been to enhance and improve the well-being of the urban community. However, given the diverse nature of urban planning, literature has highlighted the possibility of a mismatch between policy directions and the outcomes desired by society. The aim of this study is therefore, to determine whether urban policy measures currently implemented in Malaysia are in sync with the needs of society. This study applied the relative importance index (RII) method tounderstand the challenges faced by urban residents in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Malacca and Penang. The results revealed five challenges which are of concern to the urban community: prevalence of crime, rising cost of living, lack of employment opportunities, air pollutionandtraffic congestion. The findings indicate Government policies are addressing these concerns. However, for a more effective outcome, the study recommends designing urban policies in consultation with civil society.

Mohd Aqmin Abdul Wahab · Hazrul Izuan Shahiri · Mustazar Mansur · Mohd Azlan Shah Zaidi ·Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia ·2018

This paper looks at the causes of increasing cost of living by studying two (2) main factors; frstly, the slow growth in income as compared to infation, and secondly the unproportional increase in standard of living as compared to income. For the frst factor, a time series regression model was constructred using the data from Household Income Survey report (various years) to compare the fuctutation in income against the infation rate year-on-year. For the second factor, we studied the expenditure elasticity of income for the household. A log-log linear regression model was developed taking into consideration the three (3) main groups of goods that household buys: Food, Transportation and Housing. We have studied the elasticities across income strata (B40, M40, T20) and location (Rural vs Urban) to observe the changes in elasticity with respect to those variables. The result of this study points that income growth has indeed surpasses infation rate from year to year, however the standard of living is increasing at a comparatively fast rate, as evidenced by high expenditure elasticities for several types of goods for B40s and M40s. This suggests that the standard of living, or living styles are the dominant factor that contributes to the problems of increasing cost of living.