All Research

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.

Tharshini Sivabalan · Faizah Haji Mas’ud · Dolly Paul Carlo ·Pertanika Journal of Social Science and Humanities ·2022

Individuals with disabilities are highly exposed to mate crime victimisation than their non-disabled counterparts. This research aims to identify mate crime victimisation among people with disabilities in Sarawak, Malaysia. Data was quantitatively collected among 151 respondents from various governmental and non-governmental organisations in Kuching, Kota Samarahan, and Asajaya that provide residential care, medical attention, training, work opportunities, basic education, and rehabilitation for individuals with disabilities. It was found that most respondents (females between 18 and 28 years old) experienced mate crime victimisation, particularly financial abuse (F₂‚₁₄₈ = 5.905, p = .003) and sexual abuse (F₂‚₁₄₈ = 10.234, p = .001). It is deemed important to identify mate crime victimisation against such individuals with sufficient proof to enable law enforcement agencies and policymakers to develop optimal approaches and programmes that complement the needs of individuals with disabilities and alleviate potential mate crime victimisations.

Nurul Nabila Yusof · Shahareh Shahidi Hamedani · Mazzlida Mat Deli · Mohd Helmi Ali · Mara Ridhuan Che Abd Rahman ·International Journal of Economics and Management ·2022 ·JEL: L66, P23

This study aims to empirically examine the migrant food handlers’ perceived knowledge, skills, and attitudes and their impact on food quality and safety in the context of Malaysia’s foodservice industry. Using the data gathered from 198 supervisors and managers from food premises in Malaysia and analysis using SPSS (version 20) and SmartPLS 3.0 software, this research found that migrant food handlers have moderate perceived knowledge, skills and attitudes in food handling practices impact the food quality and safety. Specifically, this study confirmed that knowledge and attitudes positively and significantly affect food quality and food safety. However, insignificant results were found between skills and food safety, even though it showed a substantial impact on food quality. The findings are original and unique. It is one of the first studies to investigate the knowledge, skills, and attitude of migrant food handlers their effect on food quality and food safety, especially in Malaysia. Besides, this study extends the established theories from the literature on knowledge, skills and attitudes analysing in the foodservice sector. Therefore, this research finding is valuable for food services practitioners to focus on enhancing food quality and safety through the migrant workforce.

Abd Halim Ahmad · Nur Adiana Hiau Abdullah · Kamarun Nisham Taufil Mohd ·International Journal of Economics and Management ·2022 ·JEL: G33, G32, G34

This study examined the effects of institutional factors, including; board size, blockholder ownership, and political connections, as some of the determinants (apart from various company-level financial variables) on the outcomes of financially distressed listed companies in Malaysia. A highly concentrated ownership structure is common in most developing countries, including Malaysia. Besides, Malaysia has a unique disclosure environment where all listed companies must release relevant and adequate information to the public to improve investors' protection and corporate transparency. Therefore, Practice Notes which are standards and measures for Malaysian Listed Companies, are designed to help listed companies that are financially distressed to restructure their debts within a stipulated time, giving them sufficient time to re-emerge in the exchange. The logistic regression analysis results on a sample of financially distressed Malaysian public listed companies suggested that; interest coverage ratio, stock returns, blockholder ownership, and political connections were significance at the 5% level. The institutional variables suggested that blockholder ownership and political connectedness had a positive and significant effect on the possibility of companies emerging from financially distressed conditions. The findings have provided important practical implications for managers and potential investors in their risk management decisions.

Ramasamy Thillainathan ·Malaysian Journal of Economic Studies ·2022 ·JEL: L33, Q48

This paper reviews Malaysia’s experience in privatisation in power generation from the first half of the 1990s and the role it played in promoting Malay entry into business. In the pre-1949 period, privately-owned independent power producers and distributors (IPPs and Ds) were the dominant players. The government-owned integrated power utility, Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB), became a monopoly only since 1976. TNB’s finances were strained during the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC) period, but contracts were honoured despite strong calls for renegotiation of power purchase agreements (PPA). With the open tender era from 2012, the PPA terms have become very competitive. However, as TNB can continue to bid, this has not made for a level playing field. With competition and fall in interest rate, there has been a significant decline in internal rate of returns (IRRs). Guaranteed off-take enabled some concessionaires to still earn a good equity IRR through aggressive gearing. Development of a more active and liquid bond market has played a key role in privatisation.

M.S.M Khair-Afham · Anitha Rosland ·International Journal of Economics and Management ·2022 ·JEL: E44, E51

This study has examined the impacts of credit supply shocks and other common economic shocks (aggregate demand & supply and monetary shocks) on Malaysia's macroeconomic variables, using the Bayesian structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model and employing sign restrictions. The results showed that an expansionary credit supply shock positively affected the Malaysian economy, consistent with the existing literature. Based on the variance decomposition finding, credit supply shocks explained a significant portion of the anticipated variation in the GDP growth, inflation, and, most importantly, credit growth in Malaysia. This study further decomposed total private non-financial corporate loans into two components: households and non-financial firms. Unlike other economies that have extensively researched this subject matter (US, UK, Euro Area), the growth rate of households and non-financial firms differed greatly in Malaysia. The empirical findings revealed considerable distinctions between these two components, indicating that different treatments or policy formulations are required rather than employing the same policy to boost or govern Malaysia's credit market

Ali Albada · Nurhuda Nizar ·International Journal of Economics and Management ·2022 ·JEL: G1, G4

COVID-19 is a highly contagious viral infection that has changed the world, with many human lives being lost. This study aimed to analyse investors' sentiment and stock market behaviour in Malaysia during the COVID-19 pandemic. Stock market performance was measured through the FTSE BURSA 100 Index (T100) from January 29, 2020, until March 31, 2021, by employing principal component analysis (PCA) to construct the investors' Sentiment Index (SMI). The results indicated that the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 and its rapid spread significantly impacted investors' psychology, which disrupted investors' investment decisions. Furthermore, rapid increases in confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths increased the uncertainty and unpredictability of the country's economic situation. As a result, the Malaysian financial market showed a steep downward trend during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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.

Farah Ajlaa Julaihi · Asmah Alia Mohamad Bohari · Mohd Azrai Azman · Kuryati Kipli · Sharifah Rahama Amirul ·Pertanika Journal of Social Science and Humanities ·2022

Many countries are witnessing a rise in the ageing population, which has become a global phenomenon that all nations must address. As the population of greying people is expected to increase in Malaysia, the demand for senior citizen accommodation is predicted to have experienced a major rise by 2030. However, although studies related to retirement villages (RV) are highly important to understand how to provide a better ambience for the elderly, research on the development of retirement villages in Malaysia is yet to gather pace fully. Thus, this paper aims to explore the potential of the retirement village in Malaysia by focusing on the push factors for the elderly to move to retirement villages in the local Malaysian context. The outcome of this paper presents the initial findings derived from a literature review and pilot survey. Eight potential push factors were identified after questions were posed to potential respondents through a pilot survey questionnaire. The research revealed that the main potential reason why the elderly relocate to retirement villages was related to social factors, with the elderly preferring better access to healthcare and support due to their unique requirements. The findings of this study are relevant to Chapter 11, as underlined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which call on all governments to offer access to a secure, green environment for everyone, especially the elderly. Theoretically, this research provides the first findings on the elements that encourage the elderly to relocate to an RV when they retire in Malaysia.

Wan Norhidayah W Mohamad · Faten Nabila Abdul Fatah · Zaiton Samdin · Bakti Hasan-Basri ·International Journal of Economics and Management ·2022 ·JEL: Q51, Q57

The tourism sector plays an important part in Malaysia's economy. It includes beach and recreational tourism. However, most recreational beaches in Malaysia do not impose an entrance fee on visitors. Depending on government funding to maintain recreational beach facilities is not the best option for the future. Therefore, funding directly from visitors is needed to help cater for beach maintenance costs. Based on this, it is crucial to understand how much visitors are willing to pay for the recreational use of beaches, as any money collected could be used to help to improve facilities and services at beach areas. This study investigated visitors' willingness to pay for recreational beach facilities and has provided policy recommendations for better management of tourist facilities and services in the future. Teluk Kemang beach in Port Dickson was chosen as the case study location. This study applied the Choice Experiments (CE) method, and the model used was the Conditional Logit (CL) model. This research used four attributes: amenities, recreational facilities, cleanliness, and entrance fee. The CL results revealed that visitors were willing to pay for good amenities and cleanliness, with values of RM2.07 and RM2.43, respectively. Therefore, it was discovered that it was practical to charge an entrance fee to cover improved maintenance of beach facilities

Chakrin Utit · Mohd Alzaiery Abdul · M. Yusof Saari ·International Journal of Economics and Management ·2022 ·JEL: C67, D57, L11

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are undeniably the backbone of many developing economies, considering their sizeable share of business establishments and contribution to employment creation. Nevertheless, they have fallen short of policymakers' expectations because of the weak interlinkage issue that limits their ability to create wealth. The issue stems from SMEs' excessive reliance on non-SMEs as their primary input sources, while non-SMEs are more dependent on their cluster and imports. This paper seeks to assess the magnitude of the issue in Malaysia and Thailand by comparing the productive structures of SMEs in both economies using the cascaded input-output modelling technique. The findings validated the weak interlinkage issue in Malaysia and Thailand, with the latter suffering from it to a greater extent. Overall, SMEs remain integral to the growth drivers of developing economies. Therefore, development policies should continue to support them by considering their value-added multiplier impacts. Considering all facts and figures, strengthening existing linkage programmes and establishing an SME content requirement policy are this study's two recommendations for improving the interlinkage situation

Izaan Jamil · Mori Kogid · Thien Sang Lim · Jaratin Lily ·Economies ·2022

This paper investigates the impact of soybean and crude oil futures on palm oil indexes by utilising monthly data from three palm oil indexes listed in Bursa Malaysia, i.e., the Asian palm index, Malaysian palm index, and Plantation index, spanning from January 2010 to June 2020. The impacts were analysed using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds test approach and causality test. The statistical findings revealed that the Asian palm index has a long-run relationship with crude oil futures and crude palm oil, and a short-run relationship with soybean futures, crude oil futures, and crude palm oil. On the other hand, the Malaysian palm index has a short-run relationship with soybean futures and crude palm oil, whereas the Plantation index has a short-run relationship with crude oil futures, crude palm oil, and exchange rate. For the long-run strategy, this study recommends close monitoring of crude oil futures. Meanwhile, the short-run strategy requires close monitoring of the crude oil and soybean futures. Eventually, the empirical findings proposed that interested parties such as fund managers, investors, and traders should pay attention to crude oil and soybean futures to mitigate risk and diversify their portfolios with greater emphasis on crude oil futures.

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

Edward B. Barbier ·Economic Analysis and Policy ·2022

Rural transformation is a process of comprehensive societal change whereby countries diversify their economies and reduce their reliance on agriculture and other primary product industries. “Greening” rural transformation implies making this process of structural change and economic diversification less environmentally damaging, including reducing dependency on fossil fuels and carbon emissions. To be successful in Asia-Pacific emerging and economies, such a transformation must be compatible with the most important development goal, which is poverty alleviation. This includes reducing poverty levels as well as related objectives, such as increasing access to energy, safe water and basic sanitation. An additional policy challenge is that many developing and emerging economies in the region remain highly dependent on primary products for exports, GDP and employment, and these activities are accompanied by significant land use change, especially for tropical countries. In a post-COVID world, emerging and developing countries will need to find cost-effective and innovative policy mechanisms to achieve sustainability and rural transformation aims in the absence of significant infusions of additional financing from major economies and international organizations. This article identifies affordable policies that can yield progress towards several development goals together, rather than sacrificing some goals to achieve others. Three policies meet these criteria: a fossil fuel subsidy swap to fund clean energy investments and dissemination of renewable energy in rural areas; reallocating water subsidies to expand water supply and sanitation services for the rural poor; and using proceeds from a carbon tax to fund natural climate solutions.

Amir Lebdioui ·Review of International Political Economy ·2022 ·JEL: B5; L7; O11; O13; O14; O53; Q17

This article investigates the role of industrial policy in promoting upgrading in commodity sectors by examining the case of the petroleum, rubber, and palm oil industries in Malaysia. By doing so, it aims to contribute to an emerging scholarship that bridges the developmental state and the global value chains literature. Several findings emerge from this study. First, linkages do not unfold through market forces alone. Commodity value addition processes can be hindered by a range of barriers, including power dynamics alongside global commodity chains. The existence of high barriers for linkage development in developing nations justifies the need of state interventions. Second, successful government interventions for commodity value addition in Malaysia have gone far beyond fixing market failures and a ‘facilitative’ role of the state. Instead, the productive capabilities necessary for value addition were accumulated through coherent industrial policies and the strategic orientation of rents towards achieving productivity gains and learning. Third, political considerations, such the base of the ruling coalition, the regime type (marked by both executive dominance and political competition), and the influence of the regional intellectual climate, are essential to understanding both the policy will and ability to pursue a developmental approach towards commodity value addition.