The present paper seeks to assess the implications of increasing financial sector size on income inequality in eight Asian countries - Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and South Korea. Adopting a panel data approach, it document a non-linear relation between income inequality and financial sector size in these countries. More precisely, the increasing financial sector size is favourable to equal income distribution only up until a size threshold, beyond which further expansion of the financial sector can worsen income distribution. The analysis further highlights the income-equalizing effect of economic growth and infrastructure development and the income un-equalizing effect of trade and government expenditures. These results are robust to alternative model specifications and to exclusion of a country at a time from the sample.
This book explores how Malaysia, as a multicultural modern nation, has approached issues of nationalism and regionalism in terms of physical expression of the built environment. Ever since the nation?s post-colonial era, architects and policy makers have grappled with the theoretical and practical outcomes of creating public architecture that effectively responds to traditions, nationhood and modernity. The authors compile and analyse prevailing ideas and strategies, present case studies in architectural language and form, and introduce the reader to tensions arising between a nationalist agenda and local?regionalist? architectural language. These dichotomies represent the very nature of multicultural societies and issues with identity; a challenge that various nations across the globe face in a changing environment.
