Shazali Abu Mansor

Corporate Governance and Firm Performance in Pakistan: The Case of Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE)-30

This paper examines the relationship between four important corporate governance mechanisms (board size, board composition, CEO/chairman duality and audit committee) and two firm performance measures (return on equity, ROE, and profit margin, PM), for a sample of 30 Pakistani listed firms between 2008 and 2009. The results provide evidence of a positive significant relationship between ROE and PM and three corporate governance mechanisms (board size, board composition and audit committee). The implication of this is that, the board size should be limited to a sizeable limit and board must be a right mixture of executive and non-executive directors. The study, however, could not provide a significant relationship between the two performance measures (ROE and PM) and CEO/Chairman duality. These results are consistent with prior empirical studies.

Testing the Effectiveness of Monetary Policy in Malaysia Using Alternative Monetary Aggregation

The capability of monetary aggregates to generate stable links with fundamental economic indicators verifies the effectiveness of monetary targeting. However, traditional monetary aggregates become flawed when financial reforms take place. As official monetary aggregates fail to maintain stable links with crucial economic indicators in Malaysia, monetary targeting has been substituted by interest rate targeting. Therefore, Divisia monetary aggregates, which are considered superior to their simple-sum counterparts are used in the investigation for Malaysia. The findings imply that Divisia M2 money demand is stable and capable of generating appropriate coefficients with correct signs for the variables included. Thus, Divisia money has shed new light on the usefulness of monetary targeting in formulating monetary policy in Malaysia.

Evidence of Opportunity and Necessity Driven Entrepreneurship in Nigeria

The objective of this paper is to examine the influence of poverty, unemployment and GDP on entrepreneurship. Time series data for 31 years was collected from various official sources for the analysis. Vector autoregressive (VAR) framework was adopted to systematically capture the rich dynamic of multiple time series. Other tests conducted were unit root test, Johansen and Juselius (1990) co-integration test, Granger causality and dynamic model analysis beyond the sample. It was found that poverty and GDP influence entrepreneurship negatively, while unemployment influences entrepreneurship positively. The paper reveals the presence of both opportunity and necessity driven entrepreneurs in the country. There is a need for the government to revisit the existing policy on micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to adequately address the problem of the poor and unemployed by availing them with the opportunity to engage in entrepreneurship. Future study should consider mitigating the effect of frequent entry and exit from entrepreneurship in their data to correctly predict the effect of entrepreneurship on the economy.

Long Run Sustainability Of Sarawak - West Kalimantan Cross-Border Trade Flows

This paper is concerned with the time series behaviour of the cross border trade flows between Sarawak (East Malaysia) - West Kalimantan (Indonesia) conducted through regional port of Tebedu custom district with the main focus on the long run sustainability of Sarawak trade deficits. Cross border trade activity has gain much attention due to the dynamic linkages of this unique regional economic activity on industry, investment and employment, yet the study on long-run relationships of cross border trade flows have been largely overlooked. By employing the three stages of modern time series econometric technique, the research found significant long run cointegration relationship for the bilateral trade flows as well as support for the strong form of sustainability condition, suggesting that Sarawak-West Kalimantan bilateral trade is on the sustainable path in governing their trade flows performance. This suggests that the macroeconomic policies of Sarawak and West Kalimantan have been effective in bringing exports and imports into a long run equilibrium.

Comparison between Islamic and Conventional Banking:Evidence from Malaysia

Purpose: To determine the financial performance of Islamic banks and non-Islamic banks from 2003 to 2010 in Malaysia by applying the theory of Sharī’ah Conformity and Profitability model. Methodology: This study used accounting ratios which included profitability ratio, liquidity ratio and credit risk ratio to measure the financial performance of the Malaysian banks. Findings: Results indicate that conventional banks perform better in profitability, while Islamic banks perform better in liquidity and credit risk. In t-test of the return on asset (ROA) and total equity to net loans, there are no major difference between Islamic banks and non-Islamic banks. In the return on equity and common equity to total assets, there are statistically significant differences in these two groups. The statistically significant difference was shown in the area of liquidity which means that the Islamic banks liquidity performance has major difference with the non-Islamic banks. These finding are partially rejecting null hypothesis of profitability ratio and credit risk ratio. Moreover, the results are also rejecting null hypothesis of liquidity ratio, that there is statistically significant difference in the mean of liquidity ratio between Islamic banks and non-Islamic banks.

Forecasting Malaysian Business Cycle Movement

For years, economists have sought to summarize the visual evidence of cyclical oscillation in economic series to learn the characteristics of such cycles in real macroeconomic settings. The existence of various business cycle conceptions indeed shared a single objective, that is, to strengthen insight into the underlying thoughts behind recurring ups and downs in economic activity (Burns & Mitchell, 1946). However, the cyclical fluctuations in economic activity hardly follow a predictable pattern, as the size of expansion and contraction deviate across periods, each turning point in the business cycle presents certain crucial information that contains indications on future changing phases of the economy. Also, development in leading indicator analysis persuasively suggests that combinations of sets of leading series to form a unique composite index is generally better than any single series in explaining the cyclical movement.

DOES MONEY MATTER IN INDONESIA? REVISITING DIVISIA MONEY

In this study, we applied an ARIMA model of a long-run monetary neutrality test proposed by Fisher and Seater (1993) to empirically examine the monetary neutrality proposition in Indonesia using different definition of monetary aggregates for the period of 1981:Q1 to 2011:Q4. Both monetary aggregates (simple-sum money and Divisia money) are found to be non-neutral, indicating that Divisia money can be considered to be used as a monetary policy variable in Indonesia.

Survey evidence on the rationality of business expectations on Malaysian agricultural sector

The rational expectations hypothesis (REH) serves as an appealing mechanism in forming expectations because of its consistency with the basic principles of maximizing behavior. The present study intends to provide empirical support of forecast rationality in the context of survey-based business expectations, particularly in agriculture-based entities in Malaysia. Three rationality tests which include unbiasedness test, non-serial correlation test and weak form efficiency test have been utilized in the study. Empirical findings showed diverse evidence of rationality in business operational forecasts formed by Malaysian agriculture firms, as capital expenditure expectations were found to be irrational but gross revenue expectations were supportive of the REH proposition. This implies that the survey of business forecasts may not work well in reflecting the true business outlook, specifically in value-related operational forecasts, which in turn would directly influence investment decisions as well as the capital budgeting process.