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In 1985, Homi Kharas visited a rural fishing village in northwest Malaysia expecting to find poverty.
Kharas, who was employed by the World Bank at the time, had reason to expect this: The Malaysian government had specifically told him that this region, in the state of Kelantan, was the poorest in the country. But when Kharas arrived, he was surprised to see not destitution, but the trappings of middle-class life — a concrete jetty, TV antennas sprouting from rooftops, and a health clinic.