Crime and Income Inequality: The Case of Malaysia

This paper examines the causality between income inequality and crime in Malaysia for the period 1973-2003. Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing procedure is employed to (1) analyze the impact of income inequality on various categories of criminal activities as well as to (2) analyze the impact of various categories of criminal activities on income inequality. Interestingly our results indicate that income inequality has no meaningful relationship with any of the various categories of crime selected, such as total crime, violent crime, property crime, theft and burglary. Crime exhibits neither long-run nor short run relationships with income inequality and they are not cointegrated. It cannot be denied that there is ambiguity in the empirical studies of crime economics regarding various income variables leading to often mixed and contradicting results, which might be a good explanation of this finding.Income inequality; crime; bounds testing; Malaysia

Is crime cointegrated with income and unemployment?: A panel data analysis on selected European countries

This paper examines the causality between income, unemployment and crime in 11 European countries employing the panel data analysis for the period 1993-2001 for both aggregated (total crime) and disaggregated (subcategories) crime data. Fixed and random effect models are estimated to analyze the impact of income and unemployment on total crime and various disaggregated categories of criminal activities. Hypothesis tests show that random effect model should be used for all (namely total crime, motor vehicle crime, domestic burglary, and violent crime) except for drug trafficking. Our results indicate that both income and unemployment have meaningful relationship with both aggregated and disaggregated crime. Crime exhibits positive significant relationship with income for all the categories except for domestic burglary, whereby it is significantly negative relationship. Crime also shows positive significant relationship with unemployment except for violent crime, whereby it is significantly negative relationship. The results also show strong country specific effect in determining the crime level.income; unemployment; crime; Europe; panel data analysis

Testing for Service-Led and Investment-Led Hypothesis: Evidence from ‘Chindia’

This study examines the meaningful relationship between economic growth, and service sector contribution and domestic investment in two major Asian economies, namely India and China. Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing procedure is employed to analyze the impact of the selected variables namely (1) contribution by the service sector, (2) (4) domestic investment on economic growth and vice versa. The period of interest is 1960-2005 using annual data. The empirical results demonstrate that for the case of India, there is (1) a unidirectional causality from domestic investment to economic growth and (2) from economic growth to services. As for China, only unidirectional causality from services sector to economic growth is detected, while no meaningful relationship was found between domestic investment and economic growth.Service-led; investment-led; growth; China; India

Crime and economic conditions in Malaysia: An ARDL Bounds Testing Approach

Economists recognized that economic conditions have an impact on crime activities. In this study we employed the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing procedure to analyze the impact of economic conditions on various categories of criminal activities in Malaysia for the period 1973-2003. Real gross national product was used as proxy for economic conditions in Malaysia. Our results indicate that murder, armed robbery, rape, assault, daylight burglary and motorcycle theft exhibit long-run relationships with economic conditions, and the causal effect in all cases runs from economic conditions to crime rates and not vice versa. In the long-run, strong economic performances have a positive impact on murder, rape, assault, daylight burglary and motorcycle theft, while on the other hand, economic conditions have negative impact on armed robbery.Bounds Testing; Malaysia; Crime

Military and Economic Growth in ASEAN-5 Countries

In this study we employ the bounds testing procedure suggested by Pesaran (2001) and dynamic OLS (DOLS) proposed by Stock and Watson (1993) to test the robustness of the causal effect and long-run relationships between military expenditure and economic growth in ASEAN-5 countries from the year 1965 to 2006. Generally, our results suggest that: (1) there are only three (Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore) out of five countries analyzed exhibit long–run relationship between military expenditure and economic growth; (2) While for the case of Singapore, the causality is bidirectional, for Indonesia and Thailand it is unidirectional from military expenditure to economic growth; and (3) For the remaining countries, (Malaysia and Philippines), no meaningful relationship could be detected. The results are robust, producing similar results employing both ARDL and DOLS.military expenditure; economic growth; Asean-5

DESIGN OF A SEMI-ACTIVE STEERING SYSTEM FOR A PASSENGER CAR

This thesis presents research into an improved active steering system technology for a passenger car road vehicle, based on the concept of steer-by-wire (SBW) but possessing additional safety features and advanced control algorithms to enable active steering intervention. An innovative active steering system has been developed as 'Semi-Active Steering' (SAS) in which the rigid steering shaft is replaced with a low stiffness resilient shaft (LSRS). This allows active steer to be performed by producing more or less steer angle to the front steered road wheels relative to the steering wheel input angle. The system could switch to either being 'active' or 'conventional' depending on the running conditions of the vehicle; e.g. during normal driving conditions, the steering system behaves similarly to a power-assisted steering system, but under extreme conditions the control system may intervene in the vehicle driving control. The driver control input at the steering wheel is transmitted to the steered wheels via a controlled steering motor and in the event of motor failure, the LSRS provides a basic steering function. During operation of the SAS, a reaction motor applies counter torque to the steering wheel which simulates the steering 'feel' experienced in a conventional steering system and also applies equal and opposite counter torque to eliminate disturbance force from being felt at the steering wheel during active control operation. The thesis starts with the development of a mathematical model for a cornering road vehicle fitted with hydraulic power-assisted steering, in order to understand the relationships between steering characteristics such as steering feel, steering wheel torque and power boost characteristic. The mathematical model is then used to predict the behaviour of a vehicle fitted with the LSRS to represent the SAS system in the event of system failure. The theoretical minimum range of stiffness values of the flexible shaft to maintain safe driving was predicted. Experiments on a real vehicle fitted with an LSRS steering shaft simulator have been conducted in order to validate the mathematical model. It was found that a vehicle fitted with a suitable range of steering shaft stiffness was stable and safe to be driven. The mathematical model was also used to predict vehicle characteristics under different driving conditions which were impossible to conduct safely as experiments. Novel control algorithms for the SAS system were developed to include two main criteria, viz. power-assistance and active steer. An ideal power boost characteristic curve for a hydraulic power-assisted steering was selected and modified and a control strategy similar to Steer-by-Wire (SBW) was implemented on the SAS system. A full-vehicle computer model of a selected passenger car was generated using ADAMS/car software in order to demonstrate the implementation of the proposed SAS system. The power-assistance characteristics were optimized and parameters were determined by using an iteration technique inside the ADAMS/car software. An example of an open-loop control system was selected to demonstrate how the vehicle could display either under-steer or over-steer depending on the vehicle motion. The simulation results showed that a vehicle fitted with the SAS system could have a much better performance in terms of safety and vehicle control as compared to a conventional vehicle. The characteristics of the SAS system met all the requirements of a robust steering system. It is concluded that the SAS has advantages which could lead to its being safely fitted to passenger cars in the future. Keywords: steer-by-wire, active steering, innovative, power-assisted steering, steering control, flexible shaft, steering intervention, system failure, safety features

Pre and post crisis analysis of stock price and exchange rate: Evidence from Malaysia

The furore and chaos created by the Asian financial crisis have ignited many studies on numerous subjects, and it is believed that the crisis has changed the way nations being administered and policies formed and implemented especially those regarding monetary and fiscal policies. Johansen (1991) cointegration method was used and the period was divided into two sub periods, albeit pre crisis and post crisis. The results obtained are similar with a number of past literatures pointing to no long run relationship between stock price and exchange rate for both periods.Stock price, exchange rate, Asian financial crisis, Cointegration