MONETARY POLICY IN A SMALL OPEN ECONOMY: THE CASE OF MALAYSIA

This paper provides a case study to characterize the monetary policy regime in Malaysia, from a medium‐ and long‐term perspective. Specifically, we ask how the Central Bank of Malaysia, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), has structured its monetary policy regime, and how it has conducted monetary and exchange rate policy under the regime. By conducting three empirical analyses, we characterize the monetary and exchange rate policy regime in Malaysia by three intermediate solutions on three vectors: the degree of autonomy in monetary policy, the degree of variability of the exchange rate, and the degree of capital mobility.     

AN ASSESSMENT OF THE ASSET MANAGEMENT COMPANY MODEL IN THE REFORM OF INDONESIA'S BANKING SECTOR

Lack of satisfactory progress with reform of the banking sector may imply that the chosen remedies were unworkable in the Indonesian context. These remedies, suggested by the international community, appear not to have taken proper account of the commercial and political ramifications of the new institutions and mechanisms that were to be put in place. Of key importance is the practical difficulty of finding suitable buyers for banks and assets taken over by the new bank restructuring agency. Almost the entire corporate sector was in distress as a result of the crisis, while foreign buyers were reluctant to commit themselves given an inadequate legal system as well as significant nationalistic opposition to the sale of corporate assets to foreign entities. This article discusses reasons for the failure to achieve several principal objectives of the reforms, and canvasses alternative approaches that might be more successful.     

HIDDEN DISCIPLINES IN MALAYSIA: THE ROLE OF BUSINESS HISTORY IN A MULTI-DISCIPLINARY FRAMEWORK

Business history plays a crucial role in the understanding of the history and socioeconomic development of Malaysia. This paper analyses that role through an assessment of the most relevant colonial, post-colonial, and contemporary literature. Malaysian business history adopts a multidisciplinary approach, which has the potential to propel the discipline to address potentially sensitive political issues in Malaysia, though in the past business history's assimilation into other disciplines has discouraged, with notable exceptions, its potential to explore sensitive topics. In conclusion, the paper outlines the challenges faced by Malaysian business history academics and argues for extending the discipline's boundaries.     

TRUST IN HEALTH PROVIDERS AS A CATALYST FOR MALARIA PREVENTION: HETEROGENEOUS IMPACTS OF HEALTH EDUCATION IN RURAL GHANA

Although knowledge about effectiveness of insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs) is fairly widespread in Ghana, their use remains far from universal. We test and validate the hypothesis that health education of hospitals and health centers in rural Ghana is more effective for groups that display relatively high trust to health providers. We estimate heterogeneous impacts of health education on ITN and/or bed net use and on fever as a crude proxy for malaria in the Brong Ahafo and Upper East regions in Ghana, with help of propensity-adjusted regression. The degree of trust in health providers appears to be a key factor in determining the effectiveness of health education in both regions. The effect is not ruled out by controlling for general trust. There are indications of nonlinear effects. The Kassena-Nankana seems to be an exception to this rule—despite low trust in health providers, health education is highly effective for this ethnic group.     

LONG‐RUN DETERMINANTS OF SAVINGS RATES IN WAEMU COUNTRIES: AN EMPIRICAL ASSESSMENT FROM ARDL BOUNDS TESTING APPROACH

In this paper, we examine the long‐run determinants of savings rates for seven member countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union over the period 1970–2006. We use the bounds testing approach to cointegration developed by Pesaran et al. This methodology has several advantages with respect to other cointegration tests. The long‐run determinants of savings rate vary across countries. Results reveal that the financial liberalization process undertaken at the end of 1989 and the existing monetary policy have not been effective to increase the domestic savings rates within the area.