The Village Fund is one of the government policies that began in 2015, which seeks to place villagers as actors in village development and community empowerment in order to improve community welfare. The use of Village Funds is prioritized 80% for development and 20% for community empowerment. This research is a descriptive qualitative research oriented to describe the relationship between variables that influence the emergence of phenomena. The analysis tool used in this study is CIPP (Context, Input, Process, Product). The results showed that the utilization of the Village Fund for Community Empowerment was not on target. Village Funds contribution is dominated by apparatus or honorarium expenditure. In terms of context, data collection activities are not yet optimal in terms of community needs. From the input aspect shows that the identification of the strategy is not optimal so that the goal is not achieved. From the aspect of the process, the low participation in the management of the Village Fund and from the aspect of the product, has not yet reached the goal of utilizing the Village Fund. Based on these results, the government of East Barito Regency through the Regional Apparatus Organization related to the Village Fund policy can carry out training on Village Fund management for the village head and village apparatus and related institutions in the village so that the utilization of the Village Fund can improve the welfare of the village community.

The problem of the effectiveness of the land and building tax collection system in the Banjarmasin city government which was still low. This can be seen from the low realization of land and building revenue from 2013 to 2016 which was obtained from the amount of Regional Tax Payment Deposit Slips compared to the potential amount of land and building tax in Banjarmasin, that is the amount of Tax Payable Notices issued. The objectives of this research were to find the cause of the low effectiveness of the land and building tax collection system and to identify the obstacles occurred in the collection of property taxes in Banjarmasin government. This research used descriptive qualitative method. The analysis unit in this research was Revenue Office Banjarmasin. The research’s primary data source were based on the interview results to the Head of the Land and Building Tax Division, Section Head of Property Tax Collection Division, the operator of SISMIOP of Revenue Office Banjarmasin, and the interview results with 40 taxpayers, while the secondary data source came from the realization of the land and building revenue reports. Data analysis using triangulation technique and Fishbone diagram. The result showed that the effectiveness of land and building collection system in Banjarmasin government was still low as reflected by the low realization of land and building revenues after it was applied in 2013. This was because the taxpayer billing were still not optimal, the payment method was still limited, the weak enforcement of implementation and filing tax objections was complicated and took a long time.

Income inequality is one of the most significant impediments to the development and welfare of countries. Increased income inequality can cause to social conflict and affects social coherence negatively. Such economies become unstable and unsustainable in the long run. An inequitable distribution of income adversely affects the economic development in developing countries and inhibits the emergence of economic and political institutions that could support growth and investment. Events, which have a profound effect on societies, such as wars, revolutions, technological development and great economic crisis, might result with the elimination of income inequality in a region or country in a relatively short time. However, without such profound events, the tradition of income inequality could take centuries of efforts to achieve certain change. The present study, therefore, discusses the history of income inequality in the world, the current situation and future forecasts and presents relevant findings and suggestions.

After the Asian financial crisis in 1997, CAMELS model for evaluating banks financial soundness became questionable since the model was unable to predict the financial collapse of Asian banks. As a result, new models of evaluating the financial soundness of banks were developed. One of these models was the EAGLES model that showed to be a worthy model to consider. The model examines six areas that mostly affects the financial soundness of banks. These areas are earning, assets quality, growth, liquidity, equity, and strategic responsiveness. This study aims to compare the financial soundness of Islamic and conventional banking sub-sectors in Kuwait over the period 2011-2018. Results shows that conventional banks outperformed Islamic banks in all areas except in the growth side. The results obtained from the trend analysis revealed that Islamic banking sector is improving more rapidly in all areas, except in liquidity, and that can be explained by the fairly young age of Islamic banking and its position in the learning curve which is much steeper than conventional banking position which is somewhat flat.