The Role of Non-Parity Fundamentals in Exchange Rate Determination: Australia and the Asia Pacific Region

This paper extends the literature by looking at the contribution of non-parity variables after extracting the impact of parity variables on exchange rates of Australia and the Asia Pacific countries. Exchange rates are examined using high- and low-frequency multi-country panel time series data for a group of trade-related nations in the Asia Pacific, including Japan. Our findings suggest that exchange rate is affected by growth rate, and trade and capital flows: other less significant variables include sovereign debt; balance of payments; money supply; and trade openness. It also confirms that interest rate has significant effect on exchange rates while price effect is not significant in short run regressions. These key findings are robust across different time intervals, thus showing new findings on the exchange rate dynamics consistent with theories.

Determinants of FDI inflow in Asia / Anita Hasli, Catherine S F Ho and Nurhani Aba Ibrahim.

The research analyses the determinants of FDI inflow in Asia for the period 1993-2013 and is based on the fixed effect model. The macroeconomic factors included are lending rate, GDP per capita, trade openness, debt, exchange rate, money supply and unemployment rate. The country specific factors included are adult literacy rate, gross fixed capital formation, domestic credit provided by the financial sector, environmental pollution and natural resources rents. The study applies panel unit root tests, panel cointegration analysis and panel regression analysis based on the fixed effect model to ascertain the significance of macroeconomic and country specific factors on FDI inflow in Asia. The study found that lending rate, trade openness and money supply have a positive significance to FDI per capita whereas debt, unemployment rate and environmental pollution have a negative significance to FDI per capita

Household Behavior towards Debt in a Challenging Financial Environment: Malaysian evidence

The study of household behavior towards debt is important in this challenging financial environment. Escalating household debt can cause social and economic problems. For the past few years, Malaysia has emerged as the country with the highest household debt in the ASEAN region. This study aims to examine the predictors of intention to incur household debt among Malaysian households. Analysis on 100 fully completed and operational questionnaires in the preliminary study revealed financial literacy and subjective norm as significant predictors of attitude and the mediating relationship between attitude and intention to incur household debt was found to be negatively significant. © 2016. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies, Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. Keywords: Household behavior; household debt; financial environment; financial literac

Profile and differences in financial literacy: empirical evidence

The increasing cost of living in Malaysia has resulted in individuals and households being more mindful of their wealth management. Financial crises and world geopolitical issues have caused much volatility in returns and market volatility. These economic challenges have impacted the way Malaysians save, spend, manage risks and invest in order to preserve their livelihood. It is therefore vital to understand financial instruments and markets in order to better manage investments and wealth. This research aims to study the level of financial literacy among Malaysians across gender, income, age and ethnicity group. It applies a quantitative study method with a self-administered questionnaire to obtain relevant data. A total sample of 2000 respondents is obtained and results reveal that unfortunately, the majority of Malaysians possess only moderate level of financial literacy. In addition, there are significant differences in female, who are in the above the RM7000 income group, 30 to 39 years old and Chinese in terms of financial literacy. Findings from the study provide a better understanding of the level of Malaysians" financial literacy and implication on policy objectives to further strengthen this area through targeted sustainable financial education

Effective cross hedging : evidence from physical crude palm oil and its inter-related agricultural futures contracts / Noryati Ahmad … [et al.]

Since its establishment, Crude Palm Oil futures contract (FCPO) has been used to directly hedge its physical crude palm oil (CPO). However, due to the excessive speculation activities on crude palm oil futures market, it has been said to be no longer an effective hedging tool to mitigate the price risk of its underlying physical market. This triggers the need for market players to find possible alternatives to ensure that the hedging role can be executed effectively. Thus this investigation attempts to examine whether other inter-related grains and oil seed futures contracts could serve as effective cross-hedging mechanisms for the CPO. Weekly data of inter-related futures contracts from Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) and Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) are employed to cross hedge the physical crude palm oil prices. The study starts from 2006 until 2016. Empirical results indicate that FCPO is still the best futures contract for hedging purposes while Chicago Soybean (CBOTBO) provides second best alternative if cross-hedging is considered

Quantitative multidimensional phenotypes improve genetic analysis of laterality traits

The UK Medical Research Council and Wellcome (Grant ref: 217065/Z/19/Z) and the University of Bristol provide core support for ALSPAC. This publication is the work of the authors and SP and JS will serve as guarantors for the analysis of the ALSPAC data presented in this paper. GWAS data were generated by Sample Logistics and Genotyping Facilities at Wellcome Sanger Institute and LabCorp (Laboratory Corporation of America) using support from 23andMe. Support to the genetic analysis was provided by the St Andrews Bioinformatics Unit funded by the Wellcome Trust [grant 105621/Z/14/Z]. The Hong Kong sample was funded through a Collaborative Research Fund from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Research Grants Council (CUHK8/CRF/13G, and C4054-17WF). JS is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation, 418445085) and supported by the Wellcome Trust [Institutional Strategic Support fund, Grant number 204821/Z/16/Z]. SP is funded by the Royal Society (UF150663).Handedness is the most commonly investigated lateralised phenotype and is usually measured as a binary left/right category. Its links with psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders prompted studies aimed at understanding the underlying genetics, while other measures and side preferences have been less studied. We investigated the heritability of hand, as well as foot, and eye preference by assessing parental effects (n ≤ 5028 family trios) and SNP-based heritability (SNP-h2, n ≤ 5931 children) in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). An independent twin cohort from Hong Kong (n = 358) was used to replicate results from structural equation modelling (SEM). Parental left-side preference increased the chance of an individual to be left-sided for the same trait, with stronger maternal than paternal effects for footedness. By regressing out the effects of sex, age, and ancestry, we transformed laterality categories into quantitative measures. The SNP-h2 for quantitative handedness and footedness was 0.21 and 0.23, respectively, which is higher than the SNP-h2 reported in larger genetic studies using binary handedness measures. The heritability of the quantitative measure of handedness increased (0.45) compared to a binary measure for writing hand (0.27) in the Hong Kong twins. Genomic and behavioural SEM identified a shared genetic factor contributing to handedness, footedness, and eyedness, but no independent effects on individual phenotypes. Our analysis demonstrates how quantitative multidimensional laterality phenotypes are better suited to capture the underlying genetics than binary traits.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Pre-ipo characteristics and post-ipo operating performance in Malaysia / Catherine S F Ho and Raja Aerol Shariza Raja Amir Hamzah

The performance of Initial Public Offerings (IPO) has been investigated in numerous studies but little attention has been paid to shed more light on the factors that influence the success of these IPOs. This paper investigates the relation between pre-IPO characteristics and post-IPO operating performances. The objective of this study is to identify the determinants of post IPO operating performance. The pre-IPO factors include pre-IPO profitability, dilution of ownership, age and size of firm. The post-IPO operating performances include: return on asset, return on sales and asset turnover. Using newly public-listed companies on the Main Board of Bursa Malaysia from 2000 to 2004, findings confirmed that pre-IPO profitability and firm size are the key predictors of post-IPO performance. The results obtained provide useful information and caution for prospective investors in new issues

Is older age associated with COVID-19 mortality in the absence of other risk factors? General population cohort study of 470,034 participants

Introduction: Older people have been reported to be at higher risk of COVID-19 mortality. This study explored the factors mediating this association and whether older age was associated with increased mortality risk in the absence of other risk factors. Methods: In UK Biobank, a population cohort study, baseline data were linked to COVID-19 deaths. Poisson regression was used to study the association between current age and COVID-19 mortality. Results: Among eligible participants, 438 (0.09%) died of COVID-19. Current age was associated exponentially with COVID-19 mortality. Overall, participants aged ≥75 years were at 13-fold (95% CI 9.13–17.85) mortality risk compared with those <65 years. Low forced expiratory volume in 1 second, high systolic blood pressure, low handgrip strength, and multiple long-term conditions were significant mediators, and collectively explained 39.3% of their excess risk. The associations between these risk factors and COVID-19 mortality were stronger among older participants. Participants aged ≥75 without additional risk factors were at 4-fold risk (95% CI 1.57–9.96, P = 0.004) compared with all participants aged <65 years. Conclusions: Higher COVID-19 mortality among older adults was partially explained by other risk factors. ‘Healthy’ older adults were at much lower risk. Nonetheless, older age was an independent risk factor for COVID-19 mortality

Resolving the ancestry of Austronesian-speaking populations

There are two very different interpretations of the prehistory of Island Southeast Asia (ISEA), with genetic evidence invoked in support of both. The “out-of-Taiwan” model proposes a major Late Holocene expansion of Neolithic Austronesian speakers from Taiwan. An alternative, proposing that Late Glacial/postglacial sea-level rises triggered largely autochthonous dispersals, accounts for some otherwise enigmatic genetic patterns, but fails to explain the Austronesian language dispersal. Combining mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), Y-chromosome and genome-wide data, we performed the most comprehensive analysis of the region to date, obtaining highly consistent results across all three systems and allowing us to reconcile the models. We infer a primarily common ancestry for Taiwan/ISEA populations established before the Neolithic, but also detected clear signals of two minor Late Holocene migrations, probably representing Neolithic input from both Mainland Southeast Asia and South China, via Taiwan. This latter may therefore have mediated the Austronesian language dispersal, implying small-scale migration and language shift rather than large-scale expansion