Privatising electric power in Malaysia and Thailand: Politics and infrastructure development policy

Electric power development in Asia until recently has been a monopoly of the state, with the power sector\u27s planning, finance, construction and management being a part of government activity. The surge in demand for power, as well as external pressures, induced Asian governments to allow private sector participation in electric power. The Malaysian and Thailand cases represent different patterns of policy-making regarding privatisation. In Malaysia, the government divested Tenaga Nacional Berhad in 1992 and awarded independent power producers (IPPs) licenses to build and sell electricity to Tenaga for transmission and distribution. The IPPs were awarded without tender to friends of the government and the system has enabled the IPPs to make large profits at Tenaga\u27s expense. In the Thai case, privatisation has been a very slow process as successive governments since 1989 have not had the power to initiate extensive divestment of IPP contracting. Privatisation in Thailand is a very contentious political issue and the employees union of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) is very powerful. Thus, while Malaysia has had extensive privatisation of the power sector, the system eliminates competition in power supply resulting in a higher price of electricity for consumers. © 2003 John Wiley and Sons, Ltd

Are Foreign Firms Privileged By Their Host Governments? Evidence From The 2000 World Business Environment Survey

Using the data from World Business Environment Survey (WBES) on over 10,000 firms across eighty one countries, this paper finds preliminary evidence that foreign firms enjoy significant regulatory advantages - as perceived by the firms themselves - over domestic firms. The findings on regulatory advantages of foreign firms hold with a variety of alternative measures of regulations and with or without firm- and country-level attributes and industry and country controls. There is also evidence that foreign firms' regulatory advantages are especially substantial vis-a-vis the politically weak domestic firms. Furthermore, the regulatory advantages of foreign firms appear stronger in corrupt countries than in non-corrupt countries

The historical origins of corruption in the developing world: a comparative analysis of East Asia

A new approach has emerged in the literature on corruption in the developing world that breaks with the assumption that corruption is driven by individualistic self-interest and, instead, conceptualizes corruption as an informal system of norms and practices. While this emerging neo-institutionalist approach has done much to further our understanding of corruption in the developing world, one key question has received relatively little attention: how do we explain differences in the institutionalization of corruption between developing countries? The paper here addresses this question through a systematic comparison of seven developing and newly industrialized countries in East Asia. The argument that emerges through this analysis is that historical sequencing mattered: countries in which the "political marketplace" had gone through a process of concentration before universal suffrage was introduced are now marked by less harmful types of corruption than countries where mass voting rights where rolled out in a context of fragmented political marketplaces. The paper concludes by demonstrating that this argument can be generalized to the developing world as a whole

Development of auditing in Malaysia: Legal, political and historical influences

This work investigates the role and contribution of external auditing as practised in the Malaysian society during the forty year period from independence in 1957 to just before the onset of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997.It applies the political economic theory introduced by Tinker (1980) and refined by Cooper & Sherer (1984), which focuses on the social relations aspects of professional activity rather than economic forces alone.In a case study format where qualitative data was gathered mainly from primary and secondary source materials, the study found that the function of auditing in the Malaysian society in most cases is devoid of any essence of mission; instead it is created, shaped and transformed by the pressures which give rise to its development over time.The largely insignificant role that it serves is intertwined within the contexts in which it operates

Changing place: palm oil and sense of place in Borneo

The conservation of tropical ecosystems is complex and contested, not least in terms of cultural and political perspectives between developed and developing nations (Bawa & Seidler, 1998; Colchester, 2000; Brosius & Hitchner, 2010). In Sabah, on the island of Borneo, Malaysia much of the forest has recently been converted to oil palm plantations. The plantations cover vast areas and leave relatively little space for native flora and fauna. Whilst efforts are underway to enhance biodiversity within the plantations, there is no clear consensus as to how this might best be achieved and this has led in part to divisions opening up amongst stakeholders (Othman & Ameer, 2009). A range of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) working within Sabah endeavour to conserve threatened biodiversity; at the Governmental level there are significant drivers for development and economic stability; while the plantation owners are trying to improve their yields and increase their global market. There is also increasing consumer pressure in Europe and North America linked to concerns about the survival of iconic rainforest species such as orang-utans. This paper considers these issues within a context of globalisation and profound economic and social change within Malaysia.UKER