Role of government policy in food security: Economic and demographic challenges

Poverty and income inequality are extreme issues that still exist in Malaysia. Any rise in poverty and income inequality definitely affect economic growth. There are many great efforts taken by the government of Malaysia to eradicate poverty and to reduce the gap of income inequality which occurs since 1970’s. The incidence of poverty and income inequality is higher in rural areas compared to urban areas. This paper is mainly to study the level of poverty and income inequality in Malaysia together with government intervention to develop Malaysia’s economic growth. The research is focused among the working people at Ipoh, Perak. In this paper, questionnaire forms are being distributed to get information regarding the issue of poverty and income inequality. It also looks into the strategies taken by the government of Malaysia to eradicate poverty and income inequality. Few recommendations are given in terms of education policy, financial aid and assistance from government and non-government organization (NGO) to upgrade the standard and quality of living among the poor and lower-income group of people.

In an attempt to examine the influence of inflation on the growth prospects of the Nigerian economy, the study employs the autoregressive distributed lag on the selected variables, i.e. real gross domestic product (GDP), inflation rate, interest rate, exchange rate, degree of economy`s openness, money supply, and government consumption expenditures for the period 1980–2018. The study findings indicate that inflation and real exchange rate exert a significant negative impact on economic growth, while interest rate and money supply indicate a positive and significant impact on economic growth. Other variables in the model depict no influence on the economic growth of Nigeria. The causality result shows the unidirectional relationships between interest rate, exchange rate, government consumption expenditures and gross domestic product. However, inflation and the degree of openness show no causal relationship with gross domestic product. As a result, the study recommends that a more pragmatic effort is needed by the monetary authorities to target the inflation vigorously to prevent its adverse effect by ensuring a tolerable rate that would stimulate the economic growth of Nigeria.

Technological developments are things that must be followed by companies to achieve a competitive advantage to improve performance. To achieve and improve performance, companies need active employee engagement by encouraging motivation and fulfilling their job satisfaction. This study aims to analyze the effect of motivation and job satisfaction on performance with employee engagement as a mediating variable. The research sample is Information Technology (IT) companies located in the cities of Jakarta and Bandung, Indonesia. Research respondents are system developers who handle system development activities for a project or part of an ongoing project. By using the convenience sampling technique 103 responses were obtained from IT developers. The research model analysis method uses Partial Least Square (PLS) with SMART PLS Ver 3.0 software. Empirical findings prove that motivation has a positive effect on the performance of IT employees, while job satisfaction is independent. Employee engagement does not directly affect employee performance, but the effect of mediation through motivation and job satisfaction can have a significant effect on employee performance. The research findings have managerial implications, in increasing high employee involvement, motivation needs to be encouraged to be more active and innovative, and facilitate the achievement of the desired results.

Acknowledgment
This study was made possible because of the full support of the Region III Education Service Institute (LL-DIKTI III), the Ministry of Education and Culture of the Republic of Indonesia, and the Research Center at Mercu Buana University, Jakarta.