Budget 2018 appears to have a "sprinkling of mixed and wrong signals", although it is not completely devoid of economic sense, said political economist Shankaran Nambiar.

As an example, he pointed out how the government had partially reversed its previous cuts to public university funding in Najib’s budget announcement last Friday.

"If the signal of that policy (on university funding cuts) was meant to convey the message that universities need to be innovative in raising their own funds, this has been backtracked to some extent in this budget by awarding additional grants," Shankaran told Malaysiakini...