Ahmad Bashawir Abdul Ghani

Link among energy consumption, carbon dioxide emission, economic growth, population, poverty, and forest area: evidence from ASEAN country

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship among energy consumption (EC), carbon dioxide emission, economic growth, foreign direct investment, population, poverty, and income of four Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, namely, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, and the Philippines. Design/methodology/approach An econometric analysis was used to achieve the goal of this study taking the period of 1995-2014. Findings The results of the study motivated the researcher to recommend that four ASEAN countries, namely, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, and the Philippines should increase their energy efficiency, increase the share of green energy from their total energy use, and increase energy conservation in order to reduce the unnecessary wastage of energy. Originality/value The findings validate that economic growth, population, and income have positive and statistically significant impacts on EC, while carbon dioxide emission, foreign direct investment and poverty have negative impacts on EC for Malaysia. Economic growth, income and poverty have positive and statistically significant impacts on EC, while carbon dioxide emission, foreign direct investment and population have negative impacts on EC for Singapore. Carbon dioxide emission and foreign direct investment have positive and statistically significant impacts on EC, while economic growth, population, poverty and income have negative impacts on EC for the Philippines. Finally, economic growth, carbon dioxide emission and income have positive and statistically significant impacts on EC, while foreign direct investment, population and poverty have negative impacts on EC for Malaysia.

Discussion, Recommendations and Conclusions

This chapter discusses the findings from the survey and its implication towards the brain drain phenomenon. Coverage by the mass media often states that Malaysians are attracted to other neighbouring countries as a result of better salaries, living conditions, better lifestyles but are all these claims true? Brain drain has always been the main agenda for policy makers as the loss of skilled personnel equates to slowdown in economic growth. Although there has been quite a number of researches on the phenomenon conducted by earlier researchers, but very few have attempted to conduct it quantitatively.

Malaysia’s Development Policies

New Economic Model and all other Malaysia’s development policies and remedial measures demonstrate that in order to enhance development and provide a jumpstart to its economy, Malaysia obviously have to institute serious structural transformations. All these moves signify a substantial move towards this direction. What is more important and crucial at this juncture is converting those into real workable policies and the obligation to carry them out. It is envisioned that once all these measures are put in place and have been implemented adequately and fittingly, Malaysia will be the best place for all and it is anticipated that this will be able to keep in check Malaysia’s brain drain issue.

Results and Data Analysis

In this chapter, the explanation on the analysis performed and the results obtained had been expounded. Based on the results, the conclusion of the hypotheses testing has been elucidated whereby six hypotheses were tested and all six were supported. Meanwhile, personality was found to have a moderating effect on brain drain.

An empirical study of foreign direct investments of Malaysian multinationals: wholly-owned subsidiaries and international joint ventures

This article aims to provide an insight into the use of foreign direct investments of Malaysian multinationals as market entry modes. We developed a conceptual framework incorporating levels of control, competencies, and costs of foreign investments for market entry modes as wholly-owned subsidiaries and international joint ventures and tested our model with a survey of CEOs and managing directors at Malaysian multinational companies. Our findings suggest Malaysian multinationals are strongly influenced by their strategic motivations and their desire to exploit synergies in their choice of entry mode between wholly-owned subsidiaries and international joint ventures.