The economic performance of Malaysia was affected by a series of financial crises that had induced macroeconomic instability in the country, which in turn had immensely dampened the nation's economic growth rate. No doubt Malaysia needs an indicator to monitor the nation's economic performance from time to time. This study attempts to construct such indicator known as Macroeconomic Instability Index (MII). The constructed MII shows two significant spikes at 1998 and 2008, which correspond to the Asian Financial Crisis and US Subprime Mortgage respectively, that had resulted in negative growth rate for GDP of Malaysia in 1999 and 2010. Results obtained from further analysis by the ARDL technique show that MII has negative and significance effects on economic performance. Moreover, MII has predictive power against economic performance as early as two periods in advance. The constructed MII could serve as end-product for policy purposes or intermediate-product for other economic and finance studies.
This paper presents the relationship between different types of blockholders with information asymmetry in Malaysian firms. To be more specific, this study divides the ownership structures into managerial blockholder, institutional blockholder and individual blockholder and ownership concentration while holding firm size and trading volume as control variables. On the other hand, the stock volatility and bid-ask spread are used as a proxy for information asymmetry. A sample of the top 150 largest public listed firms in term of market capitalisation is chosen from Bursa Malaysia from 2011 to 2015. Panel regression analysis is used to examine the data. The results show managerial blockholders, firm size and trading volume significantly influence information asymmetry. While institutional blockholders, individual blockholders and ownership concentration exhibit no relationship with information asymmetry. The study from this result can be useful for investors and the policymakers in Malaysia as it gives a clearer picture and more understandings on ownership structures and information asymmetry in the Malaysia market.
The economy growth is always the attention focal point to all country. However, the economy growth impacts the protecting environment and vice-versa. The contradiction between the environment and the development of economy are getting more serious. The low carbon economy should be one of the future choice for sustainable development. This study attempts to examine the reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emission through different scenarios of economic growth and renewable energy mixed. There are three scenarios developed, namely Business-As-Usual (BAU), Ambitious 1 (AMB 1) and Ambitious 2 (AMB 2). Scenario analysis method and Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning System (LEAP) model were employed in this study. The results show AMB 1 was the most ideal scenario to strike the balance between economic development and environmental sustainability. It is recommended that power generation sector should opt for more renewable energy such as biomass, solar pv and small hydropower. In addition, integration between government agency, suppliers' and consumers' were needed to achieve Malaysia's commitment to reduce carbon emission.
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