Impact of Donald Trump’s tariff increase against Chinese imports on global economy: Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign contains several trade protectionism plans. This paper aims to analyze possible global impact of United States’ plan to impose import tariff increase against China. The GTAP model is implemented. The simulations present possible short-run effects of full-protection and manufacturing-only protection with appropriate retaliation response from China. The policy might lead to GDP, terms-of-trade, and welfare decline in United States and China; and an increase in trade balance for United States. Trade diversion pattern is observed in the simulation results, predicting shrinking bilateral trade between the two countries and increasing export toward their third trading partners.     

Risk-Taking Behavior and Capital Adequacy in a Mixed Banking System: New Evidence from Malaysia Using Dynamic OLS and Two-Step Dynamic System GMM Estimators

This study is the first attempt to investigate the relationship between the level of risky assets and capital level in a mixed Malaysian banking system covering 83 months starting December 2006. The results of dynamic ordinary least squares indicate positive relationship between capital ratio (CAR) and risk-weighted asset ratio (RWA) in the long run. Furthermore, the causality analysis based on panel vector error correction model (VECM) and two-step dynamic system generalized method of moments indicates unidirectional causality from CAR to RWA. Our results further suggest that higher capital growth and capital buffer provide an extra cushion for the Malaysian banks to pursue relatively riskier financial activities, and the nature of risk-taking behavior of Islamic banks follows that of the conventional banks.     

The dynamic dependence between stock markets in the greater China economic area: a study based on extreme values and copulas

This study employs the dynamic copula method and extreme value theory to investigate the dependence structure between pairs of greater China economic area (GCEA) stock markets consisting of Shanghai (SHSE), Shenzhen (SZSE), Hong Kong (HKSE), and Taiwan (TWSE) stock exchanges from July 2000 to June 2017. We also examine the impact of financial crisis on the dependence structure by considering the global financial crisis and the Chinese stock market crash (2015–2016). Many studies have shown that the benefits of portfolio diversification across the stock markets in the same region could be diminishing. However, it is interesting to see that the diversification benefits appear to be viable for investing in some GCEA pairs of stock markets (SHSE–TWSE and SZSE–HKSE).     

2006年新疆农户固定资产投资特点、问题及建议

农村固定资产投资是推动农村经济发展和社会进步的重要动力。农民是农村投资的主体,在农村经济发展中起着举足轻重的作用。本文利用2006年农户固定资产投资抽样调查资料,对农户固定资产投资的特点、投资结构、投资方向等做了分析,针对农户固定资产投资中存在的问题,提出了加大农户固定资产投资的建议。     

Transformational leadership and turnover intention: The mediating effects of trust and job performance on café employees in Thailand

ABSTRACT

Immediate managers are the number one predictor of employee turnover. Immediate managers’ transformational leadership style might reduce turnover intention through the employees’ trust in their manager and their perceived job performance. To support the contention, a study was conducted among 187 employees of cafés in Bangkok, hypothesizing that transformational leadership would negatively predict turnover intention and that trust and job performance would mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and turnover intention. Results support the hypotheses. Transformational leadership seems to have an impact to reduce turnover intention and organizations may benefit from development programs to instill transformational leadership style among their immediate managers.     

Islamic Banking in Malaysia: Unchartered Waters

This paper explores the Islamic banking business in Malaysia since its beginning in 1983. The Islamic banking sector has achieved its target of 20% market share in assets and deposits in 2010. To boost the industry's competitiveness and efficiency, the demands of the market forces will have to be delicately balanced with the dictates of the Shari'ah. The search for niche Islamic banking products warrants enhancements in the current regulatory, legal, and fiscal infrastructure for Islamic banking, without which these products cannot be a viable alternative to the conventional ones. While the prevailing infrastructure is conducive to Islamic banking products that hold similar characteristics with interest‐bearing loans, Shari'ah compliance can be a futile exercise when the purpose of the law (maqasid al‐shari'ah) is overlooked, for there is much more to Islamic banking than the elimination of interest.     

A configural framework of practice change for B corporations

There is increasing scholarly attention toward understanding how enterprises seeking prosocial impact organize their practices. However, this research has primarily explained changes in isolated practices and has not fully explored the mechanisms for such changes. This omission is relevant for social entrepreneurship scholars who seek to better understand how practices operate not simply internally but can effect a positive impact. We address this omission by drawing from a unique longitudinal dataset – assessment scores of enterprises seeking to be certified and recertified as B Corporations (B Corps). We also conducted 24 interviews with B Corp leaders, B Lab staff, and venture fund managers. We found that B Corps shifted their practice configurations as they underwent assessment and reassessment for certification. We also found that exogenous factors such as size and sector, and endogenous factors such as the nature of practices explained shifts in practice configurations. Our contribution is twofold. First, we test deductive claims that social enterprises re-organize for impact. We show that enterprises update their practice configurations over time. Second, we propose an inductively derived theoretical framework with three building blocks: affordability, interpretability, and social referents to explain the shifts in practice configurations.

Halal Purchase Intention Among the Singaporean Muslim Minority

Muslim consumers’ awareness toward halal foods and products has been increasing. The halal concept becomes consumers’ vital concern as it covers wide areas of consumption, though one might perceive it as only a food-related issue. Given this background, this article aims to investigate the factors that influence consumers’ intention to purchase halal-certified foods and products. By using Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior (TPB) as a theoretical framework, this research employed a quantitative survey with a sample of 332 Muslim consumers living in Singapore to examine Singaporean Muslim preferences in purchasing halal foods and products. Data gathered from the survey were then explored and analyzed. Multiple regression analysis results indicate that all TPB variables have a positive and significant influence on the intention to purchase halal-certified products among the Muslim minority in Singapore.     

Portraying ethical reasoning in Islamic banking: Addressing the role of work experience

This study aims to examine the ethical dimensions of Islamic bankers, with a reference to the factors influencing decision-making behavior related to ethical issues based on al-Ghazali's ethical philosophy. The findings reveal the manner in which Islamic banking practitioners brace themselves into situations that warrant the use of reason in making decisions related to ethical issues, where desires tend to dominate human choices. While the guidance of divine knowledge has been found to be ineffective in decision-making, the element of satanic force was found to significantly influence this process. The insignificant heterogeneous effect of work experience suggests that banking authorities should intensify the capacity building in the area of ethical teachings and the foundation of Islamic faith, regardless of the job tenure of employees. This study contributes to the growing literature on the ethical aspects in Islamic banking and organizational behavior by offering important implications for understanding and refining the ethical stance related to Islamic banking practices based on the Islamic perspective.