Bank lending and monetary policy: the effects of structural shift in interest rates

This paper provides evidence to show that the interest rate regime adopted by the monetary authority plays an important role in determining the effectiveness of the transmission mechanism of monetary policy via bank lending channel using Malaysian data. As part of the strategy to deal with the recent financial crisis, the Malaysian government introduced capital control measures which subsequently led to a structural shift in interest rates. Before the shift, interest rates were relatively high. The contractionary monetary policy achieved desirable results through the bank lending channel. However, responses of bank lending to interest rate changes were limited after the structural shift which characterises a period of low interest rate regime, rendering the bank lending channel ineffective.bounds test

Financial Disintermediation in the 1990s : Implications on Monetary Policy in Malaysia

The increased financial disintermediation that characterizes the Malaysia's financial system since the early 1990s has contributed towards changes in the dynamics of monetary transmission mechanism. Using quarterly data from 1980: 1 to 2005: 4, we found a greater effectiveness of monetary policy during the pre-1990:3 period, but the post-1990:3 period poses much difficulty for the conduct of monetary policy. Innovations in the financial market appeared to have led to lower output variability. Further, when the real interest rate is made a function of financial disintermediation, the real interest rate appeared to have lost its significance in influencing real variables in the post-1990: 3 period. This study did not, however, find evidence in support of the significance of the real interest rate in affecting real variables through the direct financing channel via the capital market.bank lending channel, capital market, cointegration, VAR

Regional And International Linkages Of The Asean-5 Stock Markets: A Multivariate Garch Approach

This paper examines the linkages among the ASEAN-5 stock exchanges, and their relationship with the Hong Kong and U.S. markets by using the multivariate GARCH approach for the period before and after the global financial crisis. The mean and volatility spillover effects are analysed. The mean, past-volatility, and past-shock spillovers between the ASEAN stock markets occurred to a lesser extent in the post-crisis period. While these findings suggest weaker linkages, the reaction to bad market news has strengthened after the crisis. The U.S. market is the main source to the mean spillover effects. Although the past-volatility and past-shock spillovers effects from the Hong Kong market are larger, the ASEAN markets tend to react more strongly towards unfavourable U.S. market news

Liquidity and firm value in an emerging market: nonlinearity, political connections and corporate ownership

This study re-examines the relationship between liquidity and firm value in the emerging stock market of Malaysia, exploring the issues of nonlinearity and moderating variables. Using data for all non-financial firms traded on Bursa Malaysia over the sample period of 2000–2015, the results from the baseline quadratic model suggest stocks must be traded higher than the threshold liquidity level before reaping the benefit of larger firm value. Our key finding of a nonlinear relationship remains robust to alternative liquidity measures and estimation methods, as well as passing a series of endogeneity checks. Using an ideal candidate of lot size reduction for Malaysian stocks in May 2003 as exogenous liquidity shock, we establish the causal effect from liquidity to firm value. Further interaction analyses uncover three important moderating variables in the liquidity-firm value relationship, in which the value impact demands a more liquid market for Malaysian public firms with political connections, higher foreign nominee ownership and higher foreign institutional ownershi

Determinants of the demand for health screening in Malaysia: The case of the aged population

The increase in the prevalence of heart disease has become a serious public health issue. Hypercholesterolemia and hypertension are two main modifiable health risk factors for heart disease.In a fast ageing society, proper preventive measures should be adopted, particularly to achieve healthy aging.The objective of the present study is to examine the factors affecting the use of two health tests, namely blood cholesterol and blood pressure screenings among adults aged 60 years and above in Malaysia.Nationally representative data collected through the National Health and Morbidity Survey 2011 (NHMS, 2011) by the Ministry of Health, Malaysia were analysed. The survey used a two-stage stratified sampling method.Enumeration Blocks were selected in the first stage, while the second stage involved selection of Living Quarters.The proportions of those not using the blood cholesterol (45.4%) and blood pressure (30.8%) tests are alarmingly high.A bivariate probit model is applied to examine the determinants of the use of these two health screening tests.The results show that education, ethnicity, location of residence, employment status, health insurance and smoking significantly affect the decision of the aged population to undergo these tests.Key findings are, first, time is a more dominant factor than income in determining health screening behaviour among the aged population. Second, being covered by insurance increases the propensity to undergo health screening. Third, smokers have a lower likelihood of screening than non-smokers.The findings suggest that intervention programmes should be targeted at the less-educated, employed individuals, individuals not covered by health insurance and smokers

Multi-objective genetic algorithms for solving portfolio optimization problems in the electricity market

a b s t r a c t The multi-objective portfolio optimization problem is not easy to solve because of (i) challenges from the complexity that arises due to conflicting objectives, (ii) high occurrence of non-dominance of solutions based on the dominance relation, and (iii) optimization solutions that often result in under-diversification. This paper experiments the use of multi-objective genetic algorithms (MOGAs), namely, the nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II), strength Pareto evolutionary algorithm II (SPEA-II) and newly proposed compressed objective genetic algorithm II (COGA-II) for solving the portfolio optimization problem for a power generation company (GenCo) faced with different trading choices. To avoid under-diversification, an additional objective to enhance the diversification benefit is proposed alongside with the three original objectives of the mean-variance-skewness (MVS) portfolio framework. The results show that MOGAs have made possible the inclusion of the fourth objective within the optimization framework that produces Pareto fronts that also cover those based on the traditional MVS framework, thereby offering better trade-off solutions while promoting investment diversification benefits for power generation companies

More shareholders, higher liquidity? Evidence from an emerging stock market

Using data assembled from all non-financial firms traded on the Malaysian stock exchange, we provide evidence of a nonlinear relationship between the number of shareholders and liquidity. While more shareholders are associated with higher liquidity, the negative effect of wider spreads kicks in when shareholder base exceeds a threshold level due to higher volatility induced by noise trading. However, the threshold level is considerably higher than the number of shareholders of most Malaysian public listed firms, suggesting much room for shareholder expansion in the local market. Our findings call for corporate managers to actively manage and expand their shareholder bases

Designing and Evaluating an Interactive Multimedia Web-Based Simulation for Developing Nurses' Competencies in Acute Nursing Care: Randomized Controlled Trial

10.2196/jmir.3853Journal of Medical Internet Research17

Investigating perceptions of a location-based annotation system

A*STA

Managing media rich geo-spatial annotations for a map-based mobile application using clustering

The world has still to emerge fully from the housing-triggered Global Financial Crisis, but housing crises are not new. The history of housing shows long-run social progress, littered with major disasters; nevertheless the progress is often forgotten, whilst the difficulties hit the headlines. Housing Economics provides a long-term economic perspective on macro and urban housing issues, from the Victorian era onwards. A historical perspective sheds light on modern problems and the constraints on what can be achieved; it concentrates on the key policy issues of housing supply, affordability, tenure, the distribution of migrant communities, mortgage markets and household mobility. Local case studies are interwoven with city-wide aggregate analysis. Three sets of issues are addressed: the underlying reasons for the initial establishment of residential neighbourhoods, the processes that generate growth, decline and patterns of integration/segregation, and the impact of historical development on current problems and the implications for policy