Firms with different ownership structures could be argued to have different levels of efficiency. Highly concentrated firms are expected to be more efficient as this type of ownership structure may alleviate the conflict of interest between managers and shareholders. In Malaysia, public-listed firms have been found to have highly concentrated ownership structure. However, whether this evidence holds for every industry has not been established. Hence, the objective of this paper is to investigate whether there are variations in ownership structure and firm's efficiency across sectors. To achieve this objective, the frequency distributions of ownership structure were calculated and firms' efficiency scores for consumer products, industrial products, construction and trading/services sectors were measured. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) under the assumptions of constant returns to scale (CRS) and variable returns to scale (VRS) was employed to estimate firms' efficiency scores. A sample of 156 firms listed on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE) was selected using the stratified random sampling method. The findings have shown that there are variations in firm ownership structure and efficiency across sectors.

Abstract:This study employs the use of Box-Jenkins' ARIMA (1,1,0) model for the estimation and forecasts based on the annual data of EPF balances, which serve as a proxy to EPF sustainability, together with the yearly data of possible determinants namely investment earnings, nominal income, elderly population, life expectancy and mortality rate in Malaysia for the 1960 -2010 and 2010 -2014 periods, respectively. Amid a negative sentiment and conceivably bleak outlook on the long term EPF inadequacy to provide adequate incomes to elderly persons, the prognosis of this study instead reveals otherwise and is found to be in support for the long term prospect and sustainability of the EPF. With necessary improvements are underway to strengthen the performance of the administered EPF system, it is likely to believe that the EPF organization is committed to promoting its product as a more inclusive and equitable scheme in Malaysia.JEL Classifications: E27, G23, H55

The objective of this study is to delve further the Malaysia's Employees Provident Fund (EPF) scheme by exploring the perceptions of 300 existing and prospective retirees in total on the existing EPF system that provides them with the adequacy of incomes in retirement. By employing the logistic model in this study, the perceptions of 250 retirees and 50 currently working employees, in particular, were evaluated as part of the overall assessment on the strategic pathway of the EPF system towards becoming the reliable financial security guarantor for elderly workers. Among others, there are relatively similar results regarding key factors to have substantial effects on the retirement income adequacy being prevailed in the cases of existing retirees and prospective retirees. Key factors namely the number of dependent persons, averaged non-EPF savings, housing loan, car loan and medical expense are found to be negatively related to retirement income adequacy. Therefore, necessary improvements on the existing EPF scheme need to be implemented so that the provision on accumulated financial resources of both existing and prospective retirees aimed at ascertaining appropriate adequacy levels in retirement incomes can be monitored in a timely manner.

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