Jerome Kueh Swee Hui

The housing market in Malaysia has experienced significant upheaval over the past twenty years, driven by consistent inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) into the building sector. Although these investments have catalyzed urban modernization and economic expansion, they have also been linked to escalating housing prices and diminishing affordability, especially in metropolitan areas. This study examines the association between foreign direct investment in construction and housing prices in Malaysia, determining whether foreign investment serves as a catalyst for housing price inflation or promotes sustainable urban growth. The study utilizes quarterly data from the first quarter of 2009 to the fourth quarter of 2023, employing a Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) to analyze both short-term and long-term dynamics among the housing Price, Foreign Direct Investment in construction sector, real interest rate, and income. Unit root tests indicate that all variables are integrated of order one, I(1), whereas Johansen cointegration results demonstrate a stable long-run equilibrium relationship among them. The results indicate that foreign direct investment in construction has a positive and considerable impact on home prices, whereas real interest rate indicates a negative effect on price fluctuations. Income growth demonstrates a beneficial although insignificant impact. Granger causality studies demonstrate a unidirectional causal relationship from foreign direct investment (FDI) to housing prices, confirming that property market of Malaysia is primarily driven by investment rather than income. The study suggests that whereas foreign direct investment (FDI) fosters construction expansion, it simultaneously impairs affordability constraints. Policymakers ought to implement focused FDI screening, bolster macroprudential instruments, and improve domestic construction efficiency to guarantee equitable and sustainable housing development.

It has been almost three decades that economies are striving for innovations to uplift their production frontier. This study endeavors to find the impact of Technology Choice Index (TCI) and patents to shape the export diversification scenario in sixty five middle income countries for the period 1995-2021. The countries are further segregated in two groups i.e. Upper Middle Income (UMI) and Lower Middle Income (LMI). The employed estimation technique is Method of Moment Quantile Regression (MMQR). The results favour both innovation strategies to affect diversification in exports. Moreover, higher incentives for innovative output and higher productivity for manufacturing produce will have stronger spillover effects upon diversified export frontier. Further, these findings suggest that adopting TCI should be at a balance between risks and benefits attached to it, as policy tool in these countries. The optimal increase in TCI and patents filing will remain a fortifying option for middle income countries to increase export diversification. Future studies need to dig export diversification at country specific sectoral level

This study aims to investigate the relationship between sustainability reporting and corporate performance moderated by the internationalization level of the firms. The sample for this empirical study is collected from the Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE)100 firms listed on Bursa Malaysia for a period of nine years from 2011 to 2019. We examine the sustainability reporting based on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standard with the G4 guideline, in which a content analysis method has been employed to obtain the Sustainability Reporting Index (SRI). The moderating variable for this study is the internationalization level, which is proxied by foreign sales generated. The findings demonstrate that sustainability reporting disclosure has no effect on corporate performance. However, internationalization improves corporate performance but serves no moderation role in the relationship between sustainability reporting and corporate performance. We conclude that there is no evidence to substantiate the claim that companies that disclose more in their sustainability reporting perform better, and this may be because Malaysian corporations are still new to non-financial reporting. We believe that although sustainability reporting is costly, sustainability reporting is able to enhance the reputation of firms in the international market. Sequentially, a highly internationalized firm with more sustainability reporting disclosures may bring wealth to the company in the long run.

Indebtedness is a huge global issue faced by all economies around the world since the older time until today. The high and increasing debt levels have become a concern, and public debt has become the core of the turmoil that began a few years ago. When the government's spending in a year exceeds its revenue, there will be a budget deficit for that fiscal year. Hence, it must use debt to fill the funding gap. This situation creates an annual deficit, which cannot end until the accumulated debt becomes unsustainable and the government's finances collapse. Hence, this study is aimed to assess the impact of the public debt threshold on current account balance and fiscal balance in selected ASEAN countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) by adopting annual data from 1990 to 2021. In panel long run estimation by pooled mean group (PMG) estimator, public debt affects twin balances to have a positive relationship. In the empirical analysis, the single threshold sample splitting model is employed to assess the impact of the public debt threshold on the current account balance and fiscal balance either below or above the threshold level. The outcomes indicate that the public debt threshold level is at 63.36%. When the public debt threshold is below 63.36%, there is a negative relationship between the current account balance and fiscal balance; whereas when the public debt threshold is higher than 63.36%, there is positive nexus between the current account balance and fiscal balance. This result implies the situation of twin divergence situation when exceeding the public debt threshold level.

Savings and consumption are the central core valuable factors in the growth of an economy. Saving and investment are specifically crucial for individuals and the government for smooth economic growth and wellbeing of the peoples. This study has used the federal government salaried class individuals with the convenience sampling of 550 participants including both male and female. The theory of permanent income study and lifecycle hypothesis support the consumption and savings patterns of the salaried class with their retirement planning and investment decisions. These decisions are also affected by the living standards and investment scams prevailing in the market. The Structural Equation Modelling-Partial Least Square (SEM-PLS) method is used in this study. The literature results revealed that saving patters and consumption patterns significantly impact investment decision of individuals. The moderating role of living standards and the mediating role of retirement planning on investment and savings relationships is essential in today's era for the better investment decision and as inflow of money in the economy. This study will help the policy makers and government to define the policies and regulations for the save investment avenues. However, the model has not been tested empirically, but the literature and study hypothesis support the model and study hypothesis. A future empirical study can be carried on using this model.

HRMARS is well established journal publisher based in Pakistan. It is publishing prominent journals in social sciences since 2011.