No abstract

The Phillips curve shows the trade-off relationship between the inflation and unemployment rates. A rise in inflation due to the high economic growth, more jobs are available and therefore unemployment will fall. However, the existence of the Phillips curve in high-income countries has not been much discussed. Countries with high income should have low unemployment rate, suggesting a high inflation. However, some high-income countries, the United States in 1970s for example, could not avert stagflation whereby high unemployment rate and inflation occurred in the same time. This situation is contrary to the Phillips curve. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the existence of the Phillips curve in high-income countries for the period 1990-2014 using the panel data analysis. The most interesting finding of this study is the existence of a bidirectional relationship between unemployment rate and inflation rate in both long and short runs. Therefore, the governments should choose to stabilize inflation rate or reduce unemployment rate

In the past few years, Borneo island had witnessed some promising development plans and announcements made by various governments. In Indonesia, the government announced that there will be relocation of Indonesia's capital city from Jakarta to East Kalimantan. In Malaysia, the federal government announced that there will be allocation for road project to connect Sabah with North Kalimantan. In Sabah, the state government did announce that there is plan to have new border town in Serudong. The new border town proposal has invited various positive reaction. At the same time, there were also some concern with regard to the impact and issues associated with the new border town. This preliminary work attempts to study the views of various stakeholders, especially the business community and households in Tawau and Kalabakan, by engaging them via focus group discussion and interview.