Economic Development and Growth

Abdul Rasheed Sithy Jesmy · Mohd Zaini Abd Karim · Shri Dewi Applanaidu ·Institutions and Economies ·2018 ·JEL: H56; O40; F50

The direct and indirect causes of armed conflict in South Asia is perhaps the single most important reason for increasing military expenditure. It is also a significant threat to the growth of national output in the region. This study examines the impact of conflict on economic growth in conflict-affected South Asian countries from 1980-2014 by employing sufficient determinants, the Solow growth model and Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds test approach to cointegration. Since military expenditureand military participation have increased simultaneously with internal and external conflict, this study used military expenditure per warring population as a proxy for conflict. Apart from mixed conclusions in the literature, the results of this study suggest that conflict contributes significantly to decreasing per capita GDP in the short-and long-run across South Asia. The findings indicate that the effect is high in the long-run and is most severe in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India since 85% of conflictin South Asia occurred in these three countries. The study recommends that policymakers and governments should adopt constructive policies to prevent and control internal and external conflicts. Ending conflict undoubtedly leads to minimising the cost of conflict and supports ways of enhancing output in South Asia.

Chee-Lip Tee · Azman Saini · Saifuzzaman Ibrahim ·Institutions and Economies ·2018 ·JEL: F14; F21; O31

This paper is an empirical assessment of the impacts of globalisation on innovative activity across developing countries. The focus is on the role of trade and capital account openness. Extreme-Bound-Analysis (EBA) approach is applied to analyse data from 58 countries over the 1996-2011 period. Though globalisation leads to greater interaction between countries through trade and Foreign Direct Investment(FDI), not all of these interactions affect domestic innovation activities. The result reveal only imports of machinery and equipment promote domestic innovation activity while there is insufficient empirical evidence to suggest that this relationship exists for imports of manufactured goods and FDI inflows. This finding is consistent with the view that import is a more important channel for technology transfer than FDI.

Sonia Kumari Selvarajan · Rossazana Ab-Rahim · Nor-Ghani Md-Nor ·Institutions and Economies ·2018 ·JEL: F13; O16; O53

East Asia Pacific has catapulted to be the most dynamic region in the world as a result of economic liberalisation and sustainable growth. This study seeks to investigate if selected East Asian countries are able to converge in terms of trade and investment openness. This paper uses the concept of Phillips and Sul to evaluate trade and investment convergence in East Asia Pacific region during the period 1990 to 2016. The overall results do not support the hypothesis that all countries converge on a single equilibrium in trade and investment liberalisation. However, findings point to the existence of club convergence.

Siong Hook Law · Tamat Sarmidi · Lim Thye Goh ·Malaysian Journal of Economic Studies ·2020 ·JEL: O11, O31, O43

This study empirically investigates the effect of innovation on economic growth using the neoclassical economic growth model. Embarking from the traditional labour growth, physical capital and human capital framework, innovation is postulated to be the main driver for robust economic growth. Using time series techniques, we discover very attention-grabbing findings that highlight the impact of innovation on economic growth for Malaysia. First, the innovation measured by the quantity of a total number of a patent application is statistically insignificant. The result is robust for various innovation measurements, including total local patent application and total foreign patent application. Interestingly, switching to total patent grant instead of a total number of patent application (local or foreign), the empirical result shows a significant impact on economic growth. The finding indirectly reveals the crucial impact of quality innovation rather than the quantity concern. Neglecting both quality and the commercialisation process of these new technologies may not solve the rigidity of knowledge commercialisation paradox. Finally, we test for the prominent institutional quality in mediating economic growth under a knowledge-based economy. The interaction between institutional quality and the total patent grant has significantly accelerated the role of innovation channel to economic growth. The empirical findings imply that inadequacy of innovative technology flow over the long term has a detrimental effect on national innovative capacity. Thus, the innovation-economic growth nexus needs to be complemented with a good institutional quality framework, skilled human capital and broader networking to commercialise the innovative product to ensure that the innovation activities promote economic growth.

Jia-Jun Gabriel Yau · Siow-Hooi Tan ·International Journal of Economics and Management ·2022 ·JEL: O33, O40

This study re-investigates the presence of the Kuznets curve in the context of Malaysia, by employing an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach. We seek to examine the non-linear impacts of economic growth on income inequality by investigating the existence of a second turning point to the relationship. Furthermore, we also assess the impacts of information and communication technology (ICT) (through internet, mobile, and broadband usage) on income inequality, besides the determinants of income inequality which have been extensively studied within the framework. This endeavour leveraged a time series analysis whereby the data was employed from the time period of 1970–2018. Our estimation results support the S-curve hypothesis that relates economic growth to inequality starting from the back portion of the inverted U-shaped curve. Our results confirm that ICT can actually be part of an active economic policy aiming to reduce existing income inequalities.

Kunal Sen · Matthew Tyce ·Structural Change and Economic Dynamics ·2019

Both Malaysia and Thailand were seen to be part of the miracle growth economies of East Asia and fast moving into high income status in the early 1990s. Following the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC) of the mid 1990s, both countries have observed prolonged growth slowdowns. In this paper, we offer a political economy explanation of the growth slowdown in Malaysia and Thailand in their post AFC phases. We argue that the nature of the political settlement in these two countries determined a growth strategy that was predicated on offering open deals in the export-oriented manufacturing sector that were accessible to most firms, while at the same time, offering closed deals to politically connected firms in the natural resource and services sectors. As the political settlement moved to a vulnerable authoritarian one in both countries, such a dualistic deals strategy became patronage based over time and detrimental to growth.

Muhammed Abdul Khalid · Li Yang ·Journal of Asian Economics ·2021

In this paper, by combining information obtained from national accounts, household surveys, and fiscal data, we document the evolution of income inequality in Malaysia, not only at the national level (for the period of 1984–2014) but also by ethnic group (for the period of 2002–2014). To our knowledge this is the first attempt to produce inequality measurements of Malaysia, which are fully consistent with the national accounts. Our research shows that despite Malaysia’s exceptional economic growth rate, its growth has been inclusive. For the period of 2002–2014, the real income growth for the bottom 50 % is the highest (5.2 %), followed by the middle 40 % (4.1 %), the top 10 % (2.7 %) and then the top 1 % (1.6 %). However, while average growth rates are positive across all ethnic groups (Bumiputera 4.9 %, Indians 4.8 %, and Chinese 2.7 %), the highest growth of real income per adult accrued to the Bumiputera in the top 1 % (at 8.3 %), which sharply contrasts the much lower growth rate of the Indians (at 3.4 %) and negative income growth rates of the Chinese (at −0.6 %). Despite the negative growth rate, the Chinese still account for the lion’s share in the top 1 %. In 2014, 60 % of the adults in the top 1 % income group are Chinese, while 33 % Bumiputera, and 6 % Indians. We conclude that in this period, Malaysia’s growth features an inclusive redistribution between income classes, but with a twist between racial groups.

Joseph Deutsch · Jacques Silber · Guanghua Wan · Mengxue Zhao ·Journal of Asian Economics ·2020 ·JEL: D31 – I31

Using data on household consumer durables from the Asian Barometer Survey, this paper examines the evolution of inequality, poverty and welfare in six countries of South East Asia: Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. We start by deriving the most common order of acquisition of these durables, using first an algorithm proposed by Paroush (1965), and then Item Response Theory. We also compute the frequency distribution of the number of durables owned by households. We then use these results to compute inequality, poverty and achievement or welfare indices adapted to the case of ordinal variables. Our empirical results confirm the existence of an order of acquisition. The results show that inequality was higher in Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines and lower in Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia. A similar classification of countries was obtained when computing multidimensional poverty indices. Finally, using the welfare or achievement index recently introduced by Apouey et al. (2019), we found that welfare was generally higher in Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia and lower in Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines

Abdul Rahim Ridzuan · Shahsuzan Zakaria · Bayu Arie Fianto · Nora Yusma Mohamed Yusoff · Nor Fatimah Che Sulaiman · Mohamad Idham Md Razak · Siswantini · Arsiyanti Lestari ·International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy ·2021 ·JEL: G10, F62

This study offers new insights for policymakers to reduce income inequality, thus ensuring economic growth which greatly benefits the poor segment of population and directing financial sector to provide easy access to financial resources for lower income group at cheaper cost. Bound test was applied to examine the long-run and short-run relationships based on the sample period beginning from 1970 until 2016. The results confirmed the existence of a long-run relationship between the variables. Financial development in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand had successfully reduced income inequality, however, a different effect was recorded in the Philippines where income distribution was worsened. Furthermore, economic growth brought positive effect to income distribution in Malaysia and Indonesia, but not for Thailand and the Philippines. Inflation, trade openness and foreign direct investment, provided mixed results for all countries. Among the policies recommendation for this paper are there should be more easy accessibility for entrepreneurs to reach the wide range of financial services including conventional and Islamic financial products, the expansion of capital market, as well as giving proper attention to the financial sector. Besides, granting the access to capital markets for low income groups or underprivileged individuals might be helpful to them either by developing entrepreneurial skill or involvement in productive activities and receive better salaries. This policy will give insight to the policymakers to strengthen their financial institutions, especially during the pandemic of Covid-19

Naoyuki Yoshino · Farhad Taghizadeh-Hesary · Miyu Otsuka ·Economic Analysis and Policy ·2020

The international remittances by immigrants to their home countries is one of the key sources of funding development in middle-income countries, especially in migrant-sending countries. This study assesses the determinants of international remittances using panel data from 22 Asia-Pacific middle-income countries, most of which are well-known migrant-sending countries, using the generalized method of moments (GMM) method. The results show that the gap in the per capita GDP growth rate between origin and destination countries, gross enrollment ratio of secondary education, and trade openness are positively associated with remittance inflow. On the other hand, net foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows are negatively correlated with remittance inflows. The results of this study can be interpreted as a paradigm shift for acquiring foreign capital in middle-income countries, from remittances in earlier stages of development to more FDI inflows when the country has the pre-requisites for absorbing foreign capital. The remittance inflows should be highly important, especially in the early stage of economic development, as additional incomes, or investment sources for those who live in middle-income countries.

Cosimo Magazzino · Marco Mele · Nicolas Schneider ·Journal of Economic Studies ·2021 ·JEL: O41, C32, E10

The purpose of this paper is to empirically test the economic convergence that operate between five selected Asian countries (namely Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia). In particular, it seeks to investigate how increased economic integration has impacted the inter-country income levels among the five founding members of ASEAN.

Xuefeng Qian · Kalsoom Rafi Que · Yingna Wu ·China and World Economy ·2020 ·JEL: F14, F16, J23, O10

As a large trading nation, China competes with importing countries’ domestic and thirdcountry markets but also creates growth opportunities for exporters. Most studies on China trade shocks or “China shocks” focuse on the impacts of import competition on developed economies. The present paper complements research on China shocks by exploring the other side of the trade exposure to China – China as the largest importer, rather than as an exporter. We analyze the effects of export expansion into China on the local labor markets of the exporting developing countries for the years 1992 to 2018. Using detailed export and employment data, we estimate employment pattern variations in manufacturing industries with exports from other developing countries as instruments for export exposure. We fi nd that the increase in trade exposure to China in the world economy has caused extensive job gains in manufacturing industries in developing countries that were exporters. On average, our estimations show that this trade exposure created approximately 1.5 million additional jobs from 1992 to 2018, which made an important contribution to manufacturing industries in developing countries. Our empirical analysis also shows that trade had stabilizing effects on employment in the countries in our sample generally

My-Linh Nguyen · Toan Ngoc Bui ·Economies ·2021

This paper focuses on examining the nonlinear impact of trade openness (TO) on economic growth (EG) in the Asean-6 countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, and Vietnam). In order to achieve the set research objectives, the authors estimate the research model through the fixed-effect panel threshold approach. Unlike previous studies, this paper finds that there is a nonlinear impact of TO on EG, whereby TO has two threshold values. Specifically, before the first threshold value, TO plays an important role in boosting EG. However, this impact level decreases gradually when TO exceeds this threshold value. In particular, when exceeding the second threshold value, the impact of TO on EG is still positive but has a relatively low value. The research results show that if TO increases to a high level (beyond the threshold value) without combining with other complementary policies, this does not encourage high-efficiency EG. In addition, this study also shows that EG is positively affected by domestic investment and negatively affected by financial crisis. The findings in this paper are of great importance for the Asean-6 countries as well as researchers.

Christopher Gan · Rafiatul Adlin Hj Mohd Ruslan · Baiding Hu · Nguyen Thi Thieu Quang ·International Journal of Business and Economics ·2020 ·JEL: L26; O53

This study investigates the relationship between access to microcredit and SMEs’ performance. Using survey data on SME’s owners/managers in Terengganu, Malaysia in 2016, the study investigates how access to microcredit affects SME sales and employment growth. Employing the Propensity Score Matching method (PSM), the study showed that SMEs with microcredit borrowing had their sales 25.6% to 25.7% higher than nonmicrocredit borrowers. After minimizing the selection bias from both observable and unobservable characteristics using Differences in Differences method (DID), the difference was much larger (28.7%). However, both PSM and DID analyses revealed no impact of microcredit access on SME employment growth. The Endogenous Switching Regression method (ESR) confirmed these findings.

Evan Lau · Jaime Moll de Alba · Kim-Hing Liew ·Economic Analysis and Policy ·2022

External debt levels have increased dramatically over the past decades. Many Asian developing countries are trapped in unprecedented levels of indebtedness while utilizing a high level of external debt for fiscal activities. This study empirically investigates the impact of such debt levels by estimating the appropriate threshold of external debt to GDP on economic growth for a sample of 16 Asian countries during the years 1980 to 2016. The outcomes indicate that external debt negatively and significantly impacts growth in most of these countries. Debt to GDP threshold construction revealed ten countries with a threshold below 30%, three countries in the range between 30%–60%, two countries in the range between 60%–90%, with only Thailand exceeding a 90% threshold. The fiscal discipline of targeting an appropriate debt to GDP ratio can serve as a guide to optimizing sustainable economic growth for countries in the Asian region. That is, appropriate ratios would allow flexibility in the use of fiscal instruments to counter any future incoming economic shocks.