Does Competition Foster Efficiency? Empirical Evidence From Malaysian Commercial Banks

This study focuses on technical efficiency measures and its decompositions as well as the relationship between efficiency and banking competition of Malaysian commercial banks. This study employs Data Envelopment Analysis to assess efficiency performance of Malaysian commercial banks during 1996–2011 while to estimate banking competition; Lerner index approach is utilised. Next, Granger causality tests between competition indexes and various measures of efficiency are undertaken to investigate "Does competition foster efficiency?" The evidence suggests that Malaysian commercial banks experienced increased concentration coupled with lower competition. The results of causality tests support a positive effect of competition on technical efficiency in Malaysian bankin

Efficiency and Competition in the Malaysian Banking Market: Foreign versus Domestic Banks

The aim of this paper is to investigate efficiency performance of Malaysian banking market using data envelopment analysis approach in the context of the increasing presence of foreign banks. Specifically, two measures of efficiency are constructed, cost and profit efficiency by utilizing bank-level data of Malaysian commercial banks, over the period 2003 to 2014. The results obtained show the domestic banks are more efficient than the foreign banks counterparts for both measures of efficiency. Next, the Lerner Index approach is employed to measure competition and finally, Granger causality tests are undertaken to answer the question, does competition foster efficiency? The results of causality tests support a positive effect of competition on cost and profit efficiency of Malaysian banks. With regard to the financial liberalization, the findings imply that higher competitive pressure may be offset the market power of individual banks; however, eventually it will results in efficiency gains of Malaysian banks.

Ranking of malaysian commercial banks: super-efficiency data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach

Banking efficiency studies have tended to focus on quantifying the efficiency of financial institutions. Few attempts have been undertaken to compare the efficiency performance of domestic and foreign banks, and even fewer have compared the super-efficiency performance of both types of banks. Addressing this gap, the present study contributes to the existing literature by utilising Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to compute superefficiency scores for individual banks. The objectives of this study are to estimate technical efficiency and to estimate the super-efficiency index of Malaysian commercial banks over the period from 2000 until 2010. The results indicate that, in general, domestic banks perform better than foreign banks. However, the super-efficiency results reveal that individual foreign banks are more efficient than individual domestic banks

THE IMPACT OF TRADE ON CHILD LABOR: EVIDENCE FROM SELECTED SAARC AND ASEAN COUNTRIES

Past studies have tended to investigate the relationship between trade and child labor under the traditional trade theories, while assuming that the trade in homogenous goods and the results show inconclusive evidence of a relationship. Hence, it would be interesting to investigate the trade effects of differentiated goods on child labor in the setting of the new trade theory. This study attempts to investigate the trade-induced child labor effects (selection, scale and technique effects) in selected Asian countries over the period from 1999 to 2013. The countries consist of the major South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries, namely: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka and selected ASEAN countries, namely: Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand, where child labor is most common. The results of this study confirm that the total impact of trade on child labor also needs to account for the selection effect, in addition to the scale and technique effects. The findings imply trade liberalization hampers the child labor market in the context of the trade in differentiated goods

The Environmental Effects Of Intra-Industry Trade In The SAARC Region

In the setting of globalization, the rising importance of international financial institutions and international relations as well as the emergence of environmental issues has inspired a new sense of political and economic interaction. Owing to these interactions, mode of trade has changed and it has resulted in the world trade reforms. Therefore, trade of differentiating goods is being appreciated and encouraged in developing economies. In the context of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), the intra-industry trade is increasingly replacing inter-industry trade. The environmental effects of the aftermath of expansion in intra-industry trade i.e. scale effect, selection effect and technique effects in the SAARC region are to be assessed in this study. The overall results of this study indicate that if intra-industry trade is expanded, it yields positive impacts on the environment. At the one hand, the disintegration of trade induced environmental effects, implies that the scale effect is hazardous for the environment. On the other hand, the trade induced selection and technique effects are beneficial for the environment in the case of SAARC region

Pro-poor tourism and poverty alleviation in Sarawak

This paper aims to investigate the pro-poor tourism impact of the capacity building, stakeholders’ support and infrastructure development on poverty alleviation. This study focused on Malay, Iban, Bidayuh, Chinese, Kelabit, Penan, Berawan and others local communities; draws upon a sample of 520 from the Kuching and Miri division of Sarawak, Malaysia. Quantitative primary data method is used, and the data analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) software. The findings showed the positive effect for capacity building on poverty alleviation (H1), stakeholders’ support on poverty alleviation (H2) and infrastructure development on poverty alleviation (H3). This study makes a significant theoretical contribution to human development theory by investigating how pro-poor tourism impact rise wage, food, education, healthcare, voice and securities in humans’ daily life. Furthermore, this study discussed several practical solutions for the local communities to benefit from pro-poor tourism. Especially on the formal and informal way of regular communication among the local government, private tourism organizations and semi-government tourism departments with local communities to increase the livelihood benefits

The Nexus between Financial Development and Economic Growth in China

The relationship between financial development and economic growth has been subject to the considerable debate in the literature of development and growth. Hence, this study aims to investigate the long-run relationship between financial development and economic growth of China over the period 1988 to 2018. This study employed Johansen’s Cointegration and Granger Causality analysis to achieve the objectives of the study. The findings of this study indicate there is a long-run relationship between financial development and economic growth in China

Impacts Of Elderly Population On The Technical Efficiency Of ASEAN

ASEAN consistently suffer a subpar performance in terms of productivity growth compare to other countries in Asia since 1987 whereby it’s productivity growth was at least 0.60 times lower than Japan, Pakistan, China, Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong and India over 1987-2019. It is an economical issue for ASEAN that required root cause investigation. Hence, a study was carried out to investigate the impacts of elderly population on the technical efficiency of ASEAN over the period of 1990-2019. By using Stochastic Frontier Approach, the estimated technical efficiency for ASEAN collectively reached 0.7398 whereby Myanmar is the highest and Lao PDR in lowest position over the period of 1990-2019. On top of that, the linear regression analysis that carried out also empirically proved that elderly population proxied by population age 65 and above as a percentage of the total population negatively and significantly influences the technical efficiency of ASEAN. In depth, 1% increment in terms of population age 65 and above as a percentage of the total population will decrease the technical efficiency of ASEAN as much as 3.4%. Surprisingly, crude death rate is significantly and positively influences the technical efficiency of ASEAN. It depicted that the growth of population may not able to be transformed as the skilled workers in ASEAN. While labor force participation of the elderly is a current trend not only globally but also in ASEAN, the member states of ASEAN particularly Brunei and Myanmar are suggested to carry out more policies to improve the productivity among the elderly labor. For the example, providing more ICT skill training for the elderly labor as well as job reallocation for the elderly based on their physical ability

The determinants of CO2 emissions in ASEAN+3 countries

This study investigates the determinants of carbon dioxide emissions in ASEAN+3 countries (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Japan and South Korea) during the period of 1991 to 2010. The methodologies employed in this study include the Im, Pesaran, and Shin Panel Unit Root test, the Pedroni (Engle-Granger based) Cointegration Test, and the Granger-Causality based on the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM). Results from the panel unit root test show that all the variables are integrated of order one, I (1). For the cointegration test, the results indicate that there is a long relationship between carbon dioxide emissions, energy consumption, economic growth, urbanisation, trade openness, and transportation. The empirical results show that economic growth, energy consumption, and trade openness are the determinants of CO2 emissions in ASEAN+3