Zaleha Mohd Noor

Market concentration of Malaysia's Islamic banking industry

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the nature and changes of market concentration in the Malaysia’s Islamic banking due to the restructuring of Islamic banking industry within the liberalization wave in the banking market. A total of 17 Islamic banks operating over the period of 2000-2010 had been considered. The structural approach framework was used to evaluate the nature and changes of market concentration in the Islamic banking industry in Malaysia. Under this approach, various market concentration indexes has been calculated from year to year basis as proposed by the industrial organizational field. Findings herein supported the structure-conduct-performance (SCP) paradigm where different concentration ratios have decreased over the study’s period where this is reflected in the greater degree of competition in the Malaysia’s Islamic banking industry. This study found an evidence that structural changes in the Islamic banking market has changed the market structure of the respective market from moderately concentrated to low concentrated market; whereby supporting the existence of competitive environment in the Malaysian Islamic banking market. Present study contributed to new knowledge in banking market concentration particularly for Islamic banking industry in the emerging economies such as Malaysia. Many past studies studying this issue had extensively examined the conventional banking system, but only several studies were on Islamic banking market. Hence, this study may enrich the existing literature on this issue, particularly for the Islamic banking industry. Policy recommendation from the findings; first, Malaysian Islamic banking industry needs a contestable market environment as to enable them to achieve better profit and efficient operation. Second, concentration ratios from this study can be used to identify the optimal number of banking firms in the Islamic banking industry.

Does Non-Conventional Education Investment Make Profitable Private Return in Malaysia?

This study provides estimates of the private returns of tertiary non-conventional education (NCE) for management graduates in Malaysia. The term ‘non-conventional education’ used in this research refers to distance learning and part-time management degree program graduates. We evaluate the private returns using basic concept of educational cost and benefit analysis. The data used were derived from alumni dataset from Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and National University of Malaysia (UKM) alumni division. Calculating the private returns of lifetime earnings, we find that the internal rates of return for NCE graduates are similar in both public and private sectors. Nevertheless, the results presented in this study are the first approximation ever of the private rate of returns to NCE in Malaysia, based on surveys on management NCE graduates in the Malaysian labor market. This study also seeks to contribute to the existing knowledge of economic analysis on lifelong learning in Malaysia.

How relevant is environmental quality to per capita health expenditures? Empirical evidence from panel of developing countries

BackgroundDeveloping countries have witnessed economic growth as their GDP keeps increasing steadily over the years. The growth led to higher energy consumption which eventually leads to increase in air pollutions that pose a danger to human health. People’s healthcare demand, in turn, increase due to the changes in the socioeconomic life and improvement in the health technology. This study is an attempt to investigate the impact of environmental quality on per capital health expenditure in 125 developing countries within a panel cointegration framework from 1995 to 2012.ResultsWe found out that a long-run relationship exists between per capita health expenditure and all explanatory variables as they were panel cointegrated. The explanatory variables were found to be statistically significant in explaining the per capita health expenditure. The result further revealed that CO2 has the highest explanatory power on the per capita health expenditure. The impact of the explanatory power of the variables is greater in the long-run compared to the short-run. Based on this result, we conclude that environmental quality is a powerful determinant of health expenditure in developing countries.ConclusionTherefore, developing countries should as a matter of health care policy give provision of healthy air a priority via effective policy implementation on environmental management and control measures to lessen the pressure on health care expenditure. Moreover more environmental proxies with alternative methods should be considered in the future research.

Earnings Discrimination among Management Graduates: Evidence from Selected Public Universities in Malaysia

Abstract The match between age-earnings profiles and earnings differential has been an important agenda in most developing countries in recent times, including Malaysia. Therefore, in this study the researchers analyze age-earnings profiles and apply the interaction term to determine earnings differential among gender for Malaysia’s conventional-education (CE) and nonconventional-education (NCE) management graduates. This study employs cross-sectional data with systematic sampling techniques on management graduates; who have been in the labor market for more than 3 years. The results of this study took a different look on gender education issues by considering the match between gender and age-earnings profiles. This study finds the initial earnings gap as a key factor affecting the earnings gap between CE and NCE management graduates. The findings of this study clearly show that, there is earnings discrimination between CE and NCE types of education in Malaysia.