Research

Gani Ibrahim Musa · Zakaria Bahari · Azreen Hamiza Abdul Aziz ·Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia ·2020

The primary purpose of the financial sector of an economy is financial intermediation. Financial intermediation activities of channelling funds from surplus to the deficit units in the economy including through capital market affect the economic growth of a country. The role of Islamic capital market in the process of affecting the growth of an economy is another dimension in finance-growth nexus. This study empirically examines the impact of Islamic capital market on Malaysian economy. It employs the ARDL bounds test approach for cointegration. The results revealed that in the long-run, Islamic capital market contributes to the Malaysian economy by way of capital formation and the efficiency of the capital served as channels of transmitting growth. However, in the short run, only Islamic capital market measure of Islamic stock market turnover contributes to the economy with productivity of capital as the only channel of transmitting growth. Moreover, there is evidence of causality between the Islamic capital market turnover and the Malaysian economy. The findings imply that the Islamic capital market effectively channelled and pooled funds to productive investment activities. It further proves the notion that in general, Islamic finance is more inclined towards real sector growth as compared to conventional counterpart due to the emphasis on equity-based financing as opposed to debt-based financing.

Dhakir Abbas Ali · Fuadah Johari · Mohammad Haji Alias ·Malaysian Journal of Economic Studies ·2019

The quality of trade data is essential for any empirical study that uses them to construct a variable representing trade. However, previous studies have largely ignored the issue of trade data discrepancy. This discrepancy occurs when a country's claim on sectoral bilateral trade is different from the value reported by its trade partner. Using a size ratio and correlation coefficient computed from the values reported by both parties of bilateral trades, this study examines trade data discrepancy in 20 trade sectors from 1987 to 2016 between Malaysia and its three major Asian trade partners, i.e. China, Singapore and Japan. We detect alarming discrepancy in Malaysia's trade data. We also find that this discrepancy depends on the trade partner, time and trade sector. This study calls for attention of Malaysian policymakers regarding the possibility of customs mismanagement. We recommend that future empirical studies utilising trade in the analysis to either reconcile the data or to deploy both data sources in the econometric analysis as a robustness check.

Nur Syuhada Che Ibrahim · Mahirah Kamaludin · Nur Fatihah Shaari ·Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia ·2019

Water service is usually taken for granted as important amenities with required levels needed, however little is known about how much consumers are willing to pay for particular water service levels. Improved water services should be based on the understanding built upon consumers’ choice and preferences. Thus, this study aims to estimate willingness to pay (WTP) of consumers in Terengganu, Malaysia for improvement in domestic water services. A choice experiment method was conducted to assess consumer preferences for water service attributes: i.e. water quality, water disruption, water pressure and water price. Primary data were collected using face-to-face interviews of structured questionnaire from a sample of residents in eight districts in Terengganu. A conditional logit model was carried out for data regression. The results showed signifcant willingness to pay (WTP) and the contribution of the level of education, age and income in supporting the specifc attributes of water services improvements. Identifying the attributes and their prices based on consumers’ preferences would help water provider to recognize and deliver preferred water service attributes, effective water tariff policy for cost recovery and water service sustainability to consumers.

Nur Farah Zafirah Zulkiflee · Nurbaizura Borhan · Mohd Fikri Hadrawi ·Pertanika Journal of Social Science and Humanities ·2022

An increase in the crime rate may jeopardize a country’s development and economic growth. Thus, understanding the relationship between crime and a few determinants is crucial in sustaining the economic growth in Malaysia. The four determinants used in this research are economic growth, population, education level, and inflation rate. The data covers the period from 1984 to 2019, and Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) modeling approaches were used in this research. The findings showed that only the population has a significant positive impact on crime rates for long-term and short-term relationships. Meanwhile, economic growth and education level have a significant long-term positive effect on the crime rate. On the other hand, the inflation rate did not significantly impact the crime rate in long-term and short-term relationships. Interestingly, it was found in the findings that the crime rate and population showed a bidirectional causal relationship indicating that the past population values are useful for a better prediction of the current crime rate and vice versa. Thus, the Malaysian government should encourage people to cooperate with the enforcement authorities to deter crime for future environmental safety effectively.

Chia-Guan Keh · Yan-Teng Tan ·Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia ·2021 ·JEL: G10, G12, G18, H51, I18, O40

The exponential spread of the coronavirus in Malaysia has caused a significant majority of the economic activities to cease, resulting in poor stock market performance. This pandemic situation has in turn prompted the government to introduce policies to restart and improve economic activity and stock market performance. Hence, does the government’s interference in attempting to control the outbreak of COVID-19 disease, play an important part in affecting the level of economic activity and stock market performance? To resolve this doubt, the impact of government policy responses to COVID-19 in the case of Malaysia was investigated. The sample period of the study was from 28 January 2020 till 29 May 2020, amounting to a total of 84 observations. The findings reveal that the responses taken by the government, such as staying at home requirements, closure of workplaces and debt or contract relief for households, significantly affected both economic activity and stock market performance in the country. Based on the results, these responses appear to have significant policy implications, particularly in displaying that debt or contract relief for households have negative impacts on the economic activities, but a positive impact on the stock market.

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.

Noor Zahirah Mohd Sidek · Bhuk Kiranantawat · Martusorn Khaengkhan ·Economies ·2022

In the present paper, we show how uncertainty emanating from fluctuations in economic uncertainty, news-based uncertainty, and geopolitical risks affect the number of containers exported from Thailand via Penang Port, Malaysia. Our sample extends from January 2009 to May 2020 from three main entry points in the Northern Peninsular Malaysia–Thailand Border: Padang Besar, Surat Thani, and Bukit Kayu Hitam. Two modes of transportation of containers are mainly used for export purposes, namely, road and rai. This study examines the nonlinear effect of uncertainty on trade by employing a two-regime Markov regime-switching approach. The empirical results show that, overall, uncertainty significantly affects the movement of containers in the high-uncertainty regime. Therefore, small ports must continue to diversify their client base to cushion the impact of fluctuations in global trade due to uncertainty

Ai-Xin Lee · Chee-Wooi Hooy ·Malaysian Journal of Economic Studies ·2020 ·JEL: G21, G28, G32

This paper examines the relationship between state ownership and banks’ risk-taking in nine Asian emerging markets for the period 2009 to 2017. The finding shows that state-owned banks are associated with higher risk-taking in terms of credit risk and return volatility. In addition, we investigate the effect of corporate governance (CG) mechanism with monitoring committee, board independence and gender diversity on state-owned banks’ risk-taking. We find that the presence of monitoring committee on board has a reducing effect on state-owned banks’ risk-taking. We further argue that independent directors help to reduce banks’ risk-taking where their supervision should be robust enough even if there is huge government intervention. Nonetheless, we do not find strong evidence on the role of female directors. In a nutshell, board functions play a crucial role in monitoring and supervising banks’ investment decisions to prevent excessive risk-taking from the government, which is relatively important in the context of Asian emerging markets.

Yong-Kang Cheah ·Institutions and Economies ·2018 ·JEL: D01; I10; I12

Medication labelling and patient knowledge can help reduce risk of misuse of medicine. The present study attempts to investigate the demographic, lifestyleand health determinants of awareness of medication labelling among adults in Malaysia. A nationally representative data is used. Findings showage, income, gender, education, ethnicity, marital status, house locality, employment status, physical activity,smoking, hypercholesterolemia and diabetes are significantly associated with awareness of medication label. In particular, age and unhealthy lifestyle reduce the likelihood of being aware of medication label, whereas education level, being married and employed, and having chronic diseases increase the probability of awareness. The study therefore, recommends intervention measures directed toward promoting awareness of medication label among the individuals who have a low tendency to read medication label or may not need read it properly to ensure desirable outcomes.

Asma Rashidah Idris · Muzafar Shah Habibullah · Badariah Haji Din ·Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia ·2018

The “old-age security” and “complete substitutability” hypotheses suggest that fnancial market can affect individuals’ decision to have less or more children. It has been recognised in the literature that at low level of fnancial development, children are considered an asset and a form of investment that could provide returns and security during old age. However, at higher level of fnancial development, individuals have more access to the fnancial market that can provide funds and fnancing during old age and as a result the demand for children is less. Furthermore, increase in female labour participation rate in the fnancial industry as well as in other economic sectors will also induce demand for fewer children. In Malaysia, the development of banks as well as the non-banking fnancial institutions has broadened credit accessibility to households and it could affects household’s decisions over the number of children they should have. Thus, the present paper empirically investigates the long-run relationship between fertility rate, fnancial development, income and household consumption in Malaysia for the period 1975 to 2013. In this study we employed the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) modelling approach for the testing of cointegration. Our results suggest that fnancial development and household consumption expenditure are negatively related to fertility rate, while fertility rate portrays a non-linear long-run relationship with income, thus exhibiting an inverted U-shaped curve with income in Malaysia.

Maisyarah Stapah @ Salleh · Bayu Taufiq Possumah · Nizam Ahmat ·Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia ·2018

This study investigates the determinants of Net Profit Margin (NPM) in Malaysia’s Islamic banking system for the period of 2011-2015 by using static panel data analysis. In Malaysia, conventional banks through its Islamic subsidiary banks are dominating the Islamic banking system in terms of total assets, total loans and total deposits. Therefore this paper attempts to investigate the impact of these Islamic subsidiaries of conventional banks towards the NPM. In relation to that, the impact of the conventional parent banks’ Net Interest Margin (NIM) towards its Islamic subsidiary banks’ NPM is also investigated. For the first objective, the displayed results shows positive relationship indicating that the Islamic subsidiaries of conventional banks’ NPM is higher than the full-fledge Islamic banks’ NPM. While the empirical results on the banks’ specific variables suggest that size, risk aversion and operating cost are positively related to NPM. However, credit risk tends to reduce NPM. Besides that, this study also finds that market concentrations and GDP growth will influence NPM in negative ways whilst inflation and Islamic stock market developments will increase NPM. Liquidity however is found insignificant to NPM. As for the second objective, the Islamic subsidiaries of conventional banks’ NPM is observed as being independent from its conventional parent banks’ NIM.

Cai Yunchao · Selamah Abdullah Yusof · Ruzita Mohd Amin · Mohd Nahar Mohd Arshad ·Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia ·2020

Using data collected from urban households in the Klang Valley, Malaysia, this study examined the impact of household debt on urban household consumption decisions. The findings revealed that household debt does not generally affect consumption decisions, except in the case of expenditure on vacation, which tends to be reduced for households facing high levels of debt. Furthermore, general financial wellness tends to be the main factor affecting consumption rather than debt. Households with poorer financial wellness make more frequent cuts to daily meals, fruit, utility, transportation, clothing, medical care, vacations, and leisure activities. Although the impact of debt on consumption is not extensive, it must be closely monitored to ensure that the risk is contained and that the wellbeing of households is not adversely affected.

Mohd Shahidan Shaari · Nor Hidayah Harun · Nor Ermawati Hussain ·Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia ·2019

Economic growth plays an important role in determining the number of female labour force. As economic growth intensifes, the number of female labour force increases simultaneously. However, the rise in the number of female labour force can lead to an increase in the number of child abuse cases. Therefore, this study is essential to explore the relationship between female labour force and child abuse cases in Malaysia. This study employs the ARDL bound testing approach and the results show that a higher number of female labour force can contribute to a higher child abuse case in Malaysia. Therefore, policies on female labour force should be formulated to cushion its effects on child abuse cases.

Siti Hajar Salwa Binti Ahmad Musadik (University Utara Malaysia (UUM)) · Ilhaamie Binti Abdul Ghani Azmi (Academy of Islamic Studies University of Malaya (UM)) ·Malaysian Journal of Consumer and Family Economics ·2019

Studies on impulse buying have been substantially conducted in developing countries by vast researchers. Nevertheless, such studies are in scarcity amidst Asian countries, particularly Malaysia. Besides, studies that have looked into the variables of materialism, sale promotion, money and time availability, and hedonic motivation are also rather sparsely carried out in the light of impulse buying behaviour. As such, this study examined the correlations between situational variables (sale promotion, money and time availability) and individual variable (materialism and hedonic motivation) with impulse buying behaviour among Muslim credit cardholders in Malaysia. In terms of instrument development, this study instrument consisted of 44 items adopted and adapted from prior studies. Questionnaires were distributed to 1,000 Muslim credit cardholders in Malaysia via purposive and snowball sampling techniques and only 635 were usable for final data analysis. The analysis was performed via Partial Least Square (PLS-SEM) analysis. The outcomes revealed that materialism, sale promotion, money and time availability, and hedonic motivation displayed significant positive correlations with impulse buying behaviour.

Neshaleni S. Paramanantham · Irene Wei Kiong Ting · Qian Long Kweh ·Institutions and Economies ·2018 ·JEL: G31; G32; G34

This study examines the impact of ownership concentration on debt structure. Based on marketcapitalisation, we obtained financial and governance data from Top 100 public listed companies in Malaysia for the period 2011-2015. Ordinary least squares and fixed-effect panel models were employed for examining data. The regression results showed that ownership held by the top five shareholders significantly and negatively affected long term debt and total debt ratios. The results remain qualitatively similar in both estimations using the ordinary least squares and fixed-effect panel models. In summary,this study offers some insights into how concentrated ownership influence corporate debt structure.