Fatimah Said

East Asian Labor Markets and the Economic Crisis: Impacts, Responses and Lessons

The sudden, and often painful consequences of the financial crisis in East and Southern Asia, led to disappearing employment, and earning opportunities in the formal sector, reduced incomes, and meager social assistance. Thus, these difficult events of the late 1990s, raised questions for the regions countries, regarding the labor market aspects of the crisis, and the needed labor policy reforms for the long term. It is in this framework that the World Bank, and the International Labor Organization (ILO) sponsored a series of papers on policy options, i.e., unemployment benefits, active labor market programs, support for vulnerable groups, and social dialogue, which were presented at the Tokyo Workshop in October 1999. This book includes those country reports, and international policy papers, in a revised form to reflect the seminar discussions. It describes how regional labor markets were affected, and how governments, and communities responded, and, looks forward in setting out the labor policy options for the future, based on international experience. A follow-up project, will focus on the application of active, and passive labor programs, to be discussed at a regional seminar in early 2001.

The determinants of industrial accidents in the Malaysian manufacturing sector

This study analyzes the determinants of industrial accidents across 44 four-digit manufacturing industries in Malaysia from 1993 to 2008 through the business cycle and structural approaches. The results of pooled ordinary least square and fixed-effects estimations revealed that industrial accidents in Malaysian manufacturing sector were negatively influenced by firm size and positively influenced by business cycle. Consistent with the findings of previous studies in other countries, the empirical evidence of this study supports the pro-cyclical behavior of injury rates in manufacturing industries towards business cycle. The analysis demonstrates that both structural and cyclical variation effects are important determinants of industrial accidents in Malaysia.

Operations Research Technique and the Decomposition of Productivity Growth in Selected Malaysian Listed Companies

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the total factor productivity growth performance of selected Malaysian listed companies with reference to adoption and adaptation of technology. To do this, we utilize the linear programming based operations research technique known as Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) methodology of Malmquist index of total factor productivity, TFP. The decomposition of TFP into technological change and technical efficiency change is useful in distinguishing innovation or adoption of new technology by best practice firms from the diffusion of technology. Data on 114 selected Malaysian listed companies for the period 2008–2011 are utilized in the study. Results obtained are analyzed and discussed, and some policy implications are suggested. KeywordsData envelopment analysis, Malmquist productivity index, technological change, technical efficiency change.