The Determinants of Inward Foreign Direct Investment: the Case of Malaysia

This study empirically explores the role of corruption, and the impact of China joining the WTO in 2001 on inward foreign direct investment (FDI) in Malaysia. From the empirical tests, this study suggests:- (1) FDI and its determinants are cointegrated; (2) Openness, interest rate, inflation rate, the joining of China into the WTO, and the level of corruption are the major determinants explaining inward FDI in Malaysia, both in the long-run as well as short- run. In general, these findings do provide the policymakers with empirical information about the policy formation on the variables those stimulating FDI in Malaysia.Corruption; Foreign Direct Investment; Malaysia

Forecasting Value-at-Risk Using the Markov-Switching ARCH Model

This paper analyzes the application of the Markov-switching ARCH model (Hamilton and Susmel, 1994) in improving value-at-risk (VaR) forecast. By considering a mixture of normal distributions with varying variances over different time and regimes, we find that the “spurious high persistence†found in the GARCH model is adjusted. Under relative performance and hypothesis-testing evaluations, the VaR forecasts derived from the Markov-switching ARCH model are preferred to alternative parametric and nonparametric VaR models that only consider time-varying volatility. JEL classification: C22, C52, G28. Keywords: Value-at-Risk, Switching-regime ARCH models.Value-at-Risk, Switching-regime ARCH models