EXCHANGE RATE VARIABILITY AND THE EXPORT DEMAND FOR MALAYSIA'S SEMICONDUCTORS: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

This paper examines the effects of exchange rate variability on export demand for semiconductors, which is the largest sub-sector of electronics industry in Malaysia as reported by MIDA (Malaysian Industrial Development Authority, 2004). The empirical results, which are estimated based on the Johansen’s multivariate co-integration tests and error correction model, suggest that there is a unique long-run relationship among quantities of export, relative price, real foreign income, and real exchange rate variability. The major finding of this paper is that the variability of real exchange rate has some effect on semiconductor exports in both the long-run and the short-run. In the light of rapid advances in technology in the global markets for electronics products, the findings are useful to policy makers for the design and target of appropriate exchange rate and industrial policies to enhance the export competitiveness of semiconductor industry.Exchange rate volatility; semiconductor exports; Malaysia;

The Ageing, Longevity and Crowding Out Effects on Private and Public Savings: Evidence from Dynamic Panel Analysis

Life-cycle theory predicts ageing exerting long-term macroeconomic impacts through the reduction of private savings. Ageing can be brought either through a fall in fertility rates or a rise in longevity. However, empirical research studying macroeconomic determinants of savings generally regard age dependency as the measure capturing the process of ageing, overlooking longevity exerting an opposite impact on private savings. Since longevity and dependency are correlated determinants of private savings, omitting either potentially causes omitted variable bias. This paper considers the joint effects age dependency and longevity have on savings. In contrast to the wider literature, not only private, but also public, savings was studied. Applying dynamic panel modelling techniques to a dataset of 55 countries from 1972-2004, age dependency is found to still exert a negative effect on private savings. However, it is found that some of these reductions can potentially be offset by increased longevity. The study also reveals some level of crowding out of private sector savings associated with changes in public sector savings and find that the Ricardian Equivalence Hypothesis cannot be entirely dismissed.

Foreign Direct Investment and Electronics Exports: Exploratory Empirical Evidence from Malaysia's Top Five Electronics Exports

The foreign direct investment (FDI) has contributed significantly to Malaysia's electronics exports as well as the growth and development of the electronics industry as a result of the export-oriented industrialization initiatives undertaken since 1970s. The aim of this study is to explore the causation between FDI and electronics exports by using Malaysia''s top five electronics exports by SITC (Standard International Trade Classification) product groups. The findings show a bi-directional causality between FDI and exports of semiconductor devices in the short run. The present study provides important policy implications towards the competitiveness of electronics exports and also promoting and targeting FDI inflows into key and priority growth in the electronics sub-sectors.

The Impact of New Immigration in native Wages: A Cross-occupation Analysis of a Small Open Economy

This paper examines how immigration affects native wages by exploiting an unexpected episode of immigrant influx. The episode happened in Hong Kong, when its government unexpectedly relaxed the restriction on immigration from mainland China in 1993, resulting in a seven-fold increase in the net inflow of Chinese immigrants between 1992 and 1993. We use variation in the employment share of immigrants across occupations for identification. To tackle endogeneity between wages and immigrant inflows across occupations, we use Welch’s (1999) congruence indices, which capture the degree of substitutability between workers from different skill groups, to construct instruments for the prevalence of Chinese immigrants in an occupation. Using micro-level data, our two-stage-least-squares estimates show that a 1 percentage point increase in the ratio of new Chinese immigrants to natives decreases native monthly real wages in the same occupation by 2.8-3.6 percents (controlling for immigrant shocks in similar occupations). Within an occupation, female and more skilled native workers experience more adverse wage impact, reflecting a high switching cost associated with occupation-specific human capital.Immigration, Labor Market Outcomes, Occupation-specific Human Capital

NEW EVIDENCE ON THE CAUSAL LINKAGES BETWEEN FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT, EXPORTS AND IMPORTS IN MALAYSIA

By extending Wong and Tang’s (2007) study, this study aims to further explore the causal relations between FDI (foreign direct investment), exports and imports. There is a unique long-run causal relationship running from exports as well as imports to FDI. A bidirectional causal relationship exists between exports and imports. These findings provide useful policy implications for sustaining FDI inflows on one hand and promoting links between multinational corporations (MNCs) and local firms on the other.Causality; exports; imports; foreign direct investment

FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT AND EMPLOYMENT IN MANUFACTURING AND SERVICES SECTORS: FRESH EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM SINGAPORE

Manufacturing and services have been regarded as the ???twin engines' of growth for Singapore economy. As the economy is moving up the value chain from downstream to upstream activities, a significant proportion of FDI (foreign direct investment) has been attracted to the manufacturing and services sectors. This paper examines the causal relationships between inward FDI and the host country's employment in these two sectors using tri-variate VAR (vector autoregressive) framework. The main findings show evidence of unidirectional causality, running from employment in manufacturing and services to FDI inflows. Furthermore, there is evidence showing strong employment linkages, predominantly from the manufacturing to services. The present study provides useful policy implications towards promoting foreign investment in emerging areas of and manpower development in both sectors of the economy.Causality; foreign direct investment; employment; Singapore.

Robust active heave compensated winch-driven overhead crane system for load transfer in marine operation

Active heave compensation (AHC) is important for load transfer in marine operation using the overhead crane system (OCS). The control of marine OCS aims to continuously regulate the displacement of the cart and the payload sway angle, whilst at the same time, maintaining the gap between the payload and the vessel main deck at a desirable and safe distance. As the marine OHC system is to be operated in a continuously changing environment, with plenty inevitable disturbances and undesirable loads, a robust controller, i.e., active force control (AFC) is thus greatly needed to promote accuracy and robustness features into the controllability of OCS in rough working environment. This paper highlights a novel method for controlling the payload in an OCS based on the combination of both AFC and AHC. Results from the simulation study clearly indicate that the performance of OCS can be greatly improved by the proposed robust AFC controller, as compared with the classical PID controller scheme

SAMSON: Spectral Absorption-fluorescence Microscopy System for ON-site-imaging of algae

This paper presents SAMSON, a Spectral Absorption-fluorescence Microscopy System for ON-site-imaging of algae within a water sample. Designed to be portable and low-cost for on-site use, the optical sub-system of SAMSON consists of a mixture of low-cost optics and electronics, designed specifically to capture both fluorescent and absorption responses from a water sample. The graphical user interface (GUI) sub-system of SAMSON was designed to enable flexible visualisation of algae in the water sample in real-time, with the ability to perform fine-grained exposure control and illumination wavelength selection. We demonstrate SAMSON's capabilities by equipping the system with two fluorescent illumination sources and seven absorption illumination sources to enable the capture of multispectral data from six different algae species (three from the Cyanophyta phylum (blue-green algae) and three from the Chlorophyta phylum (green algae)). The key benefit of SAMSON is the ability to perform rapid acquisition of fluorescence and absorption data at different wavelengths and magnification levels, thus opening the door for machine learning methods to automatically identify and enumerate different algae in water samples using this rich wealth of data