UBD School of Business and Economics

Pg Md Salleh, Ak Md Hasnol Alwee (2016) "Pemahaman Zakat Harta dan Jenis Awqaf di Brunei Darussalam". Rampak Serantau Bil 23. Bandar Seri Begawan: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.

Sepanjang sejarah Islam, zakat dan awqaf telah memainkan peranan penting dalam pembangunan masyarakat; sama ada penggunaan zakat untuk membasmi kemiskinan, atau penggunaan awqaf untuk mewujudkan perkhidmatan dan infrastruktur awam, kedua-dua konsep masih relevan sekarang seperti pada abad yang lalu. Walau bagaimanapun, oleh sebab-sebab tertentu, pemahaman dan persepsi zakat dan awqaf adalah berbeza. Makalah ini menunjukkan tahap pemahaman dan persepsi sampel di Brunei, terutama sekali perbezaan antara 215 orang responden yang menerima bantuan kebajikan (net deficit) dengan 216 orang
responden yang tidak menerima bantuan kebajikan (net surplus). Penemuan menunjukkan pemahaman zakat dan awqaf adalah pada tahap yang rendah; hanya 10 – 20 peratus daripada kedua-dua kumpulan menjawab soalan asas dengan betul. Dari segi persepsi, responden
mempunyai pandangan bahawa jenis zakat tradisional dan awqaf berbentuk keagamaan adalah jenis yang dominan dan terkenal di Brunei. Penemuan ini menunjukkan keperluan untuk masyarakat Islam secara umum, terutamanya kumpulan yang tidak menerima bantuan kebajikan (net surplus), untuk mempunyai pemahaman zakat dan awqaf yang lebih baik dengan niat untuk memenuhi tanggungjawab pembayaran zakat mereka, dan juga merealisasi potensi awqaf, terutamanya awqaf yang melibatkan sosioekonomi sesuatu kawasan atau negeri. Aspek ini adalah sangat relevan pada masa ini dengan kejatuhan harga minyak yang menjejaskan negara-negara Islam yang bergantung kepada sumber ini; pengendalian zakat dan awqaf secara optima akan memainkan peranan penting untuk memastikan golongan miskin dan orang ramai mempunyai sumber yang diperlukan oleh mereka, dan tidak sematamata bergantung kepada kerajaan.

Two prototype monetary growth models are examined and compared when agents are infinitely lived and possess recursive time preferences. A more expansionary monetary growth rate raises steady-state capital intensity if money is in the utility function, but lowers it if money is introduced through a cash-in-advance constraint, while reducing social welfare in both cases. The optimal monetary growth rule, calling for different contraction rates between the two models, achieves a Generalized Modified Golden Rule path in the first and the Golden Rule path in the second, both with the steady-state rate of time preference maximized.

The directional derivative of the Uzawa-Epstein utility functional gives rise to Epstein's generating function. The function has two important attributes: its partial derivatives, when discounted, yield directly the marginal utilities, while it also serves as a generator of preferences.

The Boehm-Bawerkian and the Fisherian approaches lead to identical measurements on both the strong and the weak rates of time preference. Since they are generally path-dependent when goods are multiple, conditions assuring their path-independence are identified.

In preferences are of the Uzawa-Epstein recursive kind, an individual agent's optimal consumption-wealth relation can always be expressed in the form of c(t)=α(·)W(t), where the factor α(·) is determined by the future paths of consumption and real interest rate. The proportionality of this relation as contended by the permanent income-life cycle hypothesis requires that the instantaneous discounting function be constant and that the instantaneous utility function be iso-elastic, thereby implying that the underlying preferences are homothetic. The converse also holds. Thus, the preference homotheticity and the proportionality of the optimal consumption-wealth relation are equivalent.

This paper examines the question of the non-neutrality of money in normative monetary growth models, in which the desired paths of consumption and asset accumulation are derived from intertemporal optimization considerations. With the inflation rate determined from the requirement that the ex ante excess flow demand for goods be closed partially or completely by the price adjustment, it is shown that the neutrality of money in such models is invariant to the differences between the neoclassical and the Keynes-Wicksellian market structures.

The balance sheet identity is interpreted to imply that if n − 1 of n assets are in stock equilibrium, so is the remaining asset. Under the notion of the end-of-period equilibrium, the following are shown. (1) This interpretation leads to the contradiction that the system does not allow enough independent equilibrium relations to determine uniquely the equilibrium values of its endogenous variables. (2) The balance sheet identity is equivalent to Walras' Law in flow form. Thus, Foley's methodological precept is verified; transforming a period model into its continuous time analogue does not lead to different outcomes from period analysis.

In the representative agent model with money in the utility function, if consumption and real balances are perfect complements, steady-state capital intensity and real balance holdings are both invariant to monetary growth, regardless of the nature of time preferences.

This paper shows that a simple principle, expressible by a single equation, runs through intertemporal consumer behavior: the effect of any given variations of consumption on the utility must be balanced against the effect of such variations on subsequent stocks of assets. The former is measured by the directional marginal utility and the latter by the directional marginal value of assets; the implicit utility price of assets, necessary to convert the latter into utility units, is then determined in reference to the maximized value of the utility functional. It is this equation that is implied by Pontryagin's maximum principle.

This paper addresses the viability of the permanent income– life cycle hypothesis in a monetary economy in which money enters the utility function of infinitely lived agents. Two forms of the hypothesis are distinguished: weak and strong. Deriving the Keynes–Ramsey rule of consumption under preferences of the Uzawa–Epstein recursive class and examining the optimal consumption–wealth relation, the paper studies the restrictions that these forms impose on the utility functional, identifies the necessary and sufficient conditions for the hypothesis to hold, and clarifies how such conditions are related to the neutrality of money.JEL Classification Numbers: D91, E21, E40, C61.

The paper studies the stability and the non-neutrality of money issues of the neoclassical monetary growth theory when the liquidity preference function and the price dynamics equation are generalized in the Tobin model. Our generalization introduces Tobin's real purchasing power into the liquidity preference function, thereby allowing real balance flows to exert direct income effects. Such effects allow a number of separate cases in the price dynamics behavior, some of which lead to results that differ from the neoclassical propositions. Thus, these propositions are sensitive to the choice of a particular proxy measure of the transactions motives of the demand for money.

The balance sheet identity, as a limiting form of the discrete time household budget constraint, fails to support the IS-LM model. A flow equilibrium model based on conservation principles is consistent with the transactions theory of the money demand.

In the neoclassical monetary growth literature, the rationality condition in the sense of freedom from money illusion is imposed on the demand for nominal balances by assuming that this demand is homogenous of degree one in nominal income and nominal wealth. We argue that the price level should enter into this demand as a separate argument, and that the rationality condition should require that the demand be homogenous of degree one in nominal income, nominal wealth, and the price level. Then, the symmetry issue of the real purchasing power is consequential to the structure of the neoclassical monetary growth model.

In the one sector neoclassical monetary growth model, the balanced growth path under perfect foresight is a saddle point. The paper demonstrates that this instability problem can be resolved by entering real purchasing power into the liquidity preference function as well as into the consumption function. This process allows an additional mechanism based on income effects in money demand by which a change in real balances can influence the growth path. Stability now depends critically on the size of such income effects given wealth effects from money demand. If stability is restored, the nature of the traditional non-neutrality of money must be qualified.

Blinder and Solow's crowding-out analysis is extended by allowing wealth effects of debt accumulation on both aggregate demand and aggregate supply. Two questions are reexamined; (1) the compatibility relationship between the long-run stability and the sign of the instantaneous money and bond multipliers, and (2) the long-run relative expansionary effect of bond financing. Without capital accumulation, real crowding-out may become compatible with stability under both money and bond financing, while nominal crowding-out is not. Normally, this is also true with capital accumulation. Furthermore, bond financing is not necessarily more expansionary than money financing in either real or nominal terms.