Maria Socorro Gochoco-Bautista opened the discussion by noting that the Basri, Rahardja, and Fitranai (BRF) paper simply discussed economic growth without paying attention to its sustainability and equity outcome. In particular, the Indonesian economy has recorded an impressive record over the past five years or so, notwithstanding the adverse shock of the global financial crisis. Nevertheless, the economy has failed to regain and maintain the impressive employment growth record of the pre-Asian financial crisis periods. Income inequality also seems to have increased in recent years. Gochoco-Bautista also argued that the term “middle-income trap” is a misleading concept that provides policymakers in these countries with an unjust opportunity for placing the blame of their own policy failures on external forces. These counties are stuck in the “middle” largely because of domestic policy failures.
Prema-chandra Athukorala alluded to what he called “two dangerous obsessions” in the BRF paper, which have also figured...