All Research

Bee Hui Soh · Ghee-Thean Lim · Soo Y Chua ·Malaysian Journal of Economic Studies ·2021 ·JEL: B27, F14, O13, Q17, Q22

Malaysia, one of the global major fish producers, has highly traded fisheries products given its many water bodies. Nonetheless, it faces a serious fish trade deficit, implying that the Malaysian fisheries sector might lose its competitiveness in the global market. This paper adopts a modified constant market share (CMS) analysis, which incorporates a net-share approach index and geometric framework, to measure the export competitiveness of the Malaysian fisheries sector. The findings reveal that half of the fisheries products exhibit optimistic export competitiveness. Malaysia reflects the strongest competitiveness in exporting frozen fish and the least competitiveness in the export of crustaceans. Additional effort and attention on those less competitive groups of aquatic invertebrates, live fish and crustaceans are required to improve the export performance. Application of the modified approach is highly proposed as it is not only a simple measurement that gives relatively more accurate results but also succeeds to overcome inconsistency in the traditional approach. The findings provide evidence of unrealised fish export potential regarding product categories, which helps policymakers, traders and marketers to develop their long-term strategic plans and enhance the export competitiveness of the fisheries sector in Malaysia.

Nur Azura Sanusi · Noor Hayati Akma Shafiee · Nor Ermawati Hussain · Zuha Rosufila Abu Hassan · Mohd Lazim Abdullah · Nor Hayati Sa’at ·Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business ·2021 ·JEL: E47, G17, H52, I123

This study estimates the financial value of return on investment (ROI) of research funds. Four simulation estimations are employed to measure ROI finance value that considers the outputs, outcomes, impacts and total ROI from the allocation input received. Research outputs, outcomes, and impacts can be quantitatively measured based on improvements to existing systems. In terms of input, the Malaysian government has allocated MYR301,350,000 for fundamental research in the 2021 budget compared with 2019, up 9.5 percent from 2019. It brings up the question: To what extent does the input of research funds allocated by the government yield a good return in outputs, outcomes, and impacts to the academic community, society, and country? The result of total ROI shows around MYR7 return is generated by researchers for each Malaysian ringgit channeled by the funder. More specifically, for a research project, it is more difficult to produce impacts and outcomes compared to research outputs. The positive return is evidence that all the allocated funds are beneficial to the stakeholders. The government can apply this approach in calculating ROI for evaluation and fund allocation to universities. Furthermore, the positive financial value of research output, outcome, and impact automatically contribute to a positive innovation environment in Malaysia.

Suriyani Muhamad · Suhal Kusairi · Nadia Zamri ·Economics and Sociology ·2021 ·JEL: G40, G41, G51, G32, D14, R51

An immense concern of governments globalwide today is financial inclusion as one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Governments arrive at many solutions by addressing the policies to improve financial achievement, mainly through financial education programmes and specifically personal finance. Yet, financial management has such a broad scope and is not limited to just knowledge and financial literacy. Individuals are born with different confidence levels and non-identical financial abilities. This study investigates financial self-efficacy by applying psychometric instruments, risk preference and demography characteristics towards saving decision behaviour. The sample in the survey consisted of 479 respondents in Peninsular Malaysia that then became subject to structural equation modelling. The results show that financial self-efficacy is one of the critical factors that explain individual saving decision behaviour. Also, risk preference, gender and area (rural or urban) determine the saving decision behaviour. This paper also implicates that there might be a gap between the rural and urban levels of financial efficacy that needs government’s action to narrow it.

Muralitharan Paramasua · Evelyn S. Devadason · Pardis Moslemzadeh Tehrani ·Millennial Asia ·2021

This article investigates policy constraints for the environmental goods sector in Malaysia based on the dimensions of market-based (including regulatory) instruments and trade policies. In-depth structured interviews with the government and key industry players are conducted, and six overarching themes constraining the efficacy of the instruments and policies were identified. The findings suggest that incentives and loans for this sector are skewed to manufacturers and low-risk projects, respectively. The major policy gaps in this sector are mostly related to procedural issues, namely non-transparent information, non-uniformity of requirements and complex documentation for certification, licensing and permits.

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.

Kean-Siang Chng · Suresh Narayan ·Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy ·2021

The presence of a beauty premium in the labor market has been convincingly demonstrated in developed countries, although studies examining this issue in other countries have been few. Additionally, two related issues remain unclear: (i) Does the beauty premium have the same effect on the preferences of male and female personnel in charge of hiring? (ii) Does the interaction of attractiveness with creativity influence their evaluation differently? This study investigates the issues above in the context of a non-western country. A field experiment was conducted and the data were analyzed using regressions to test the interaction of the three factors (attractiveness, creativity and gender). We found that in common with findings elsewhere beauty is still used to decide who to hire, when no additional information is available, regardless of the gender of the hiring personnel. However, when information on creativity becomes available, male hirers give priority to it while female hirers continue to emphasize good looks. The reasons for this difference and whether or not this finding is unique to Malaysia are worth investigating in future studies.

Mohammad Shahansha Molla · Mohammad Tariq Hasan · Mahadi Hasan Miraz · Mohammad Tahlil Azim · Md. Kaium Hossain ·Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business ·2021 ·JEL: M1, M4, M48, Q56

This study aims to examine the relationship between directors’ diversity (DIRDIV) and financial performance (FP) with a particular focus on the moderating effect of corporate sustainability practices (CSP). The study analyzes a sample of 104 firms listed on the Bursa Malaysia for the period from 2015 to 2017. Directors’ diversity is measured by the Blau index, and Tobin’s Q is used as a proxy of FP of the firms while the content analysis method is adopted to measure CSP. The study also employs three control variables, namely, board size, firm size, and leverage. Panel corrected standard errors (PCSE) estimator model has been used to test the hypotheses by STATA software. It is found that directors’ diversity in terms of independent and non-independent directors significantly and positively affect the financial performance of the firms. Furthermore, this study reveals that CSP significantly moderates the relationship between directors’ diversity and financial performance. This study suggests that the government and regulatory bodies should put more emphasis on diversifying the board and follow up the mandatory CSP to enhance financial performance of the firms, which is likely to ensure their long-term survival and to reduce the risk of collapse in the future.

Muhammad Ashraf Fauzi · Tulasi Martin · Kamalesh Ravesangar ·Entrepreneurial Business and Economics Review ·2021 ·JEL: L26, D80, D91, L20, N15

The objective of the article is to understand entrepreneurial abilities of students in Malaysian higher education system. Hence, the role of transformational leadership, psychological empowerment, and knowledge sharing in inducing this behaviour are imperative to ensure that students are inclined to and familiar with entrepreneurial activities during their studies.

Muhammad Safuan Abdul Latip · Farhana Tahmida Newaz · Rachel Yong Yuen May · Ahmad Esa Abdul Rahman ·Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business ·2021 ·JEL: Q56, M39, D16, Q01, M59

The study investigated the effect of food safety knowledge, food safety trust and the factors influencing organic food purchase intention in the ‘new normal’ of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study employed non-contrived and cross-sectional methods. The data was collected in Malaysia using convenience sampling. A total of 330 valid questionnaires were analyzed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) and PROCESS for hypothesis testing. The study revealed a significant relationship involving food safety knowledge on personal attitude, perceived social pressure, and perceived autonomy. Moreover, organic food purchase intention was found to be influenced by personal attitude, perceived social pressure, and perceived autonomy. Interestingly, trust in organic food safety moderated the relationship between perceived autonomy and organic food purchase intention. The study proved valuable for stakeholders and organic food producers to understand the ‘new normal’ COVID-19 market scenario for a sound understanding of the market and the sustainability of the organic food industry. A new research framework is proposed and validated, related to individual purchase decision in global health issues which is limited in current literature. Hence, the study contributed to a better comprehension of green consumerism mainly in the Asian market.

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.

Krishna Moorthy · Nik Mohamad Zaki Nik Salleh · Ang Xin Jie · Chan Shu Yi · Lau Shin Wei · Loo Yian Bing · Yee Zhao Ying ·Millennial Asia ·2021

This study examines the social media usage of Malaysian millennials in planning their domestic holidays. This study integrated the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and technology acceptance model (TAM) variables by adding electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM), as it is a crucial factor influencing the travel industry nowadays. Data were collected from 301 Malaysians. The results show that e-WOM is the greatest antecedent influencing Malaysian millennials to use social media in planning their domestic holidays. Local tourism organizations such as Tourism Malaysia could gain an understanding of the issue through this study, and the promotion of local tourism through social media could be developed to reach millennials in Malaysia.

Hon Chung Hui ·South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance ·2021 ·JEL: F31, D72, D73, O38

This article explores the effects of political events on foreign exchange returns in Malaysia. We identify five political events in recent history, namely the 13th General Election (GE13), the imprisonment of a key opposition politician, the scandal from the 1MDB exposé, the appointment of a new Central Bank Governor and the 14th General Election (GE14). Using event studies, our findings show that the imprisonment of the opposition party leader triggered a favourable response from the foreign exchange market. However, market reactions to the 1MDB scandal were largely unfavourable. The GE13 triggered unfavourable market response, while the reverse is true for market reactions to GE14. Market response to the appointment of the new Central Bank Governor was rather positive. The Event Study is the first of its kind that examines the foreign exchange market implications of key political events in Malaysia. There are practical considerations that emanate from these findings.

Nor Salwati Othman · Nor Hamisham Harun · Izzaamirah Ishak ·Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business ·2021 ·JEL: DO1, D91, Q01, Q28, Q55

The government policies and initiatives to guarantee sustainable energy and clean environmental conditions contributed to the introduction of green technology electricity appliances in the market. This study sought to determine the physiological and socio-economics-demographic factors driving residential electricity consumers to use green technology electricity appliances, mainly solar PV, smart meter, electric vehicle, and battery storage technology. By understanding consumer intention, the investors of solar PV, battery storage, electric vehicle, and smart meter can estimate the demand and upscale the market for the corresponding products. For that purpose, the intention to use the solar PV, smart meter, electric vehicle, and battery storage function is developed by utilizing the combination of the theory of planned behavior, technology acceptance, and reasoning action. A reliable and valid structured online questionnaire and stepwise multiple regression are used to identify the possible factors that drive consumer behavior intention. The results show that the social influence, knowledge on RE, and perceived price significantly influence residential consumers’ willingness to adopt the technologies offered. The findings of this study suggest that the involvement of NGOs, public figures, and citizens’ cooperation are all necessary to spread information about the government’s objectives and support Malaysia’s present energy and environmental policies

Fazli Wadood · Mohammed Emad Alshaikh · Fazal Akbar · Maqsood Mahmud ·Entrepreneurial Business and Economics Review ·2022

The main objective of this research is to integrate the resource-based view (RBV) to analyse how the relationship between firm performance and entrepreneurial orientation is mediated by outbound innovation among furniture firms in Malaysia.

Peter Rosenkranz · Monica Melchor ·Economic Analysis and Policy ·2022

Past crisis episodes have illustrated the interplay of macroeconomic and financial conditions, including the presence of harmful macrofinancial feedback effects. Meanwhile, financial markets have become increasingly connected and economic and financial cycles more synchronized over time. Against the backdrop of past financial crises and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we document and analyze trends in Asia’s financial interconnectedness over the past 3 decades, as well as its possible role in predicting financial crises. Employing a vector-autoregressive model and a panel probit regression, we find that financial interconnectedness increased across Asia and the Pacific, being particularly pronounced during past crises, including the present COVID-19 pandemic. We also find that increased interconnectedness is strongly and positively associated with the probability of crisis onset.