The Effects of Price-support Programme on Farm Tenancy Patterns and Farm Profitability: Some Evidence from Malaysia

Translog normalised restricted profit function model is specified and estimated for the four rice granary areas, each administered by a local government body, namely, the MIP, the KIP, the NWSP, and the KEIP, in which the price-support programme has some noticeable effects on farm tenancy and farms profitability. So far, there have been no empirical studies that have used this methodological framework to analyse such economic phenomenon in Malaysia. This, in fact, is the main contribution of the present paper. From the estimated function, the shadow values of land and labour are computed, which in turn are used to elucidate the behaviour of rice farmers in Malaysia. Together, the estimated and computed results, to a large extent, are successful in explaining the observed changes in farm tenancy patterns and the way the farmers (comprised of owneroperator, owner-tenant, and tenant-farmer) are “economically” responding to the sum of profits generated from rice farming and, subsequently, from the programme. Further, given the price-support programme, the results also point to the fact that rice farming in Malaysia is as lucrative a job as any other sub-sector outside this, in particular unskilled urban workers and electronics workers, and thus this programme could be pursued further.

The Effects of Price-support Programme on Farm Tenancy Patterns and Farm Profitability: Some Evidence from Malaysia

Translog normalised restricted profit function model is specified and estimated for the four rice granary areas, each administered by a local government body, namely, the MIP, the KIP, the NWSP, and the KEIP, in which the price-support programme has some noticeable effects on farm tenancy and farms profitability. So far, there have been no empirical studies that have used this methodological framework to analyse such economic phenomenon in Malaysia. This, in fact, is the main contribution of the present paper. From the estimated function, the shadow values of land and labour are computed, which in turn are used to elucidate the behaviour of rice farmers in Malaysia. Together, the estimated and computed results, to a large extent, are successful in explaining the observed changes in farm tenancy patterns and the way the farmers (comprised of owneroperator, owner-tenant, and tenant-farmer) are “economically” responding to the sum of profits generated from rice farming and, subsequently, from the programme. Further, given the price-support programme, the results also point to the fact that rice farming in Malaysia is as lucrative a job as any other sub-sector outside this, in particular unskilled urban workers and electronics workers, and thus this programme could be pursued further

The Effectiveness of Micro-Finance Institutions in Alleviating Poverty: The Case of Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank and BRAC

Microcredit is the most effective and successful way to let the poor having access to credit. Research to study its impact on alleviating poverty among the poor is numerous. However, unlike others, our study examines the effectiveness of Grameen Bank and BRAC, the two major micro-financers in alleviating poverty among the most disadvantaged people in Bangladesh. Hitherto, a study of this nature in which two Bangladesh’s micro-financers operating in four districts are surveyed and appraised side by side is hardly at one’s disposal. As such, this study can be considered as pioneering in its attempt. Our study has revealed the followings: (i) the poor are the direct beneficiary of the existing micro-finance institutions in Bangladesh. Nevertheless, some of them, especially those who have accounts in both banks, are having problem to repay the loans. Therefore, a mechanism has to be devised to limit each person to enjoy one loan at a time. In addition, a high percentage of the poor in Bangladesh is looking forward to making loans from interest-free banks; and, (ii) the services rendered by both micro-financers to the poor are still no better than the conventional banks. In fact, more than 50.0 per cent of the respondents have shown their dissatisfaction with the services extended to them. To address this problem, it is highly recommended for both micro financers to improve their services by way of making it mandatory for their staff to undergo relevant training programs

REVISITING THE CONCEPT OF LEGAL GUARANTEE IN ISLAMIC LAW FOR STRUCTURING ISLAMIC FINANCIAL PRODUCTS

Purpose of Study: In the modern Islamic financial products and services, legal guarantee is becoming increasing important in the structuring of products, particularly those used in the investments. As a result of the increasing importance of the concept of guarantee, this paper specifically revisits the conceptual analyses of legal guarantee in Islamic law with a view to providing the basis for the use of this concept in structuring relevant Shari‘ah-compliant products. Methodology: The study adopts a comparative legal analysis of the views of classical Muslim jurists. The researchers examine the principles relating to guarantee, such as the meaning of guarantee, its authority, its pillars and conditions. Other principles include modes of guarantee and its objective.  The paper also examines the principles and terms of guarantee necessitates an assessment of the effect of the guarantee contract on the contracting parties, particularly whether the guarantor has the right of recourse to the guaranteed person for a refund. The researchers adopt qualitative research methodology to analyse and examine the data. Results: It was found that although guarantee is permissible in Islamic law, it is not absolute. In fact, to make it more Islamically acceptable or Shari’ah compliant there are other terms and conditions that the contract has to fulfil especially by the guarantor, guaranteed person as well as guaranteed asset. Results: Legal Guarantee is permissible in Islamic law to prevent harm that may happen to the traders and investors, and protect the public interest.  Classical and contemporary Muslim scholars’ views are that guarantee is not limited to guarantee for debt, but extended to the guarantee for other commercial transactions like guarantee of future liability and physical punishment.  Guarantee has its own pillars and conditions, which should be met in order for a guarantee contract to be a valid one. The researchers suggest to conduct empirical research in order to have a clear picture on the concept of legal guarantee for structuring Islamic financial products

REAL STOCK PRICES AND THE LONG-RUN MONEY DEMAND FUNCTION IN MALAYSIA: Evidence from Error Correction Model

This study adopts the error correction model to empirically investigate the role of real stock prices in the long run-money demand in the Malaysian financial or money market for the period 1977: Q1-1997: Q2. Specifically, an attempt is made to check whether the real narrow money (M1/P) is cointegrated with the selected variables like industrial production index (IPI), one-year T-Bill rates (TB12), and real stock prices (RSP). If a cointegration between the variables, i.e., the dependent and independent variables, is found to be the case, it may imply that there exists a long-run co-movement among these variables in the Malaysian money market. From the empirical results it is found that the cointegration between money demand and real stock prices (RSP) is positive, implying that in the long run there is a positive association between real stock prices (RSP) and demand for real narrow money (M1/P). The policy implication that can be extracted from this study is that an increase in stock prices is likely to necessitate an expansionary monetary policy to prevent nominal income or inflation target from undershooting

Measurement and sources of technical inefficiency : some evidence from the Sudanese Islamic bank

The establishment of Islamic banks that started in many parts of the Muslim countries some years ago has become a fact. However, this phenomenon needs to be justified empirically. Sudan has adopted Islamic principles for its entire banking industry. This has put the spotlight on the performance of the Islamic banks in the Sudan. In this paper the stochastic cost frontier function with a time series of cross-section data on Sudanese Islamic banks is used. The error terms are decomposed into v and u , which represent random noise and technical inefficiency, respectively. The banks in the sample have been divided into three categories, namely national banks, private domestic banks, and foreign joint venture banks. The technical efficiency was measured and the sources of ineficiency were investigated. The results showed that all banks in these groups were technically inefficient. The results also reveal that the national banks and private domestic banks were more technically inefficient than the foreign joint venture banks. The sources of ineficiency are attributed to the ownership, lack of banking technologies, severe economic sanctions and the lack of managing the high risk of the Islamic financing modes. This result has very good policy implications for the recent Sudanese government privatization policy regarding its national banks

THE FUTURE OF CORRUPTION IN THE ERA OF CASHLESS SOCIETY

Purpose of Study: This paper aims to further understand the role of a cashless society in eradicating the corruption throughout the eliminating the usage of cash. Methodology: The method used for this conceptual paper is based on a wide range of literature reviews from journal articles, thesis proceedings and conferences, books and online news which are related to the keywords and research area. Results: Battling the corruption by enforcing the cashless society been introduced as sophisticated method to reduce the possibility of taking bribes while everything will be recorded. This way came under light after been applied by the central bank of Nigeria in 2012 to reduce the corruption and has also been used in India to overcome the issue of counterfeit notes in 2016. Meanwhile as the information age considered a historic period in the 21st century, introducing the cashless society comes in compatible with the current trend of digitizing all the monetary system. This paper concluded the main factors can help the cashless to curb the corruption and proposed new topics for future studies