Kenneth R. Szulczyk

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at Khon Kean University

This study unravels the nexus between higher heating value (HHV) from fossil fuels to a country’s gross domestic product (GDP), renewable energy, urbanization, innovation, and trade openness for 28 countries between 1984 and 2021. HHV is a measure of environmental degradation because fossil fuel combustion releases thermal energy, which lingers and...

As human beings, we often ponder upon our existence on this earth and ask ourselves why we are here. We search for answers through various religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. They share a common theme where God wants us to use all our talents and become closer to Him. We examine methods like fasting, meditation, luc...

Economists use game theory to analyze strategic behavior. For example, a firm with few competitors in the market must consider how its rivals will react when the firm introduces a new product, pricing strategy, or a new service. Furthermore, political leaders must consider how the public would respond if they had passed a new regulation or tax. Pub...

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing is about ethical investing. While ESG investing has garnered heightened attention, the research has not settled on whether ESG investing can “do well while doing good”. Using a proprietary ESG rating database of monthly firm-specific data, we examine the performance of ESG-incorporated investing...

This paper extends the literature of the natural resource curse by proposing the role of innovation in the relationship between natural resource dependence and economic growth within non-linear model. We hypothesize that innovation can help a country to overcome the resource curse through increasing investment productivity and the creation of highl...

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing is about ethical investing. While ESG investing has garnered heightened attention, the research has not settled on whether ESG investing can “do well while doing good”. Using a proprietary ESG rating database of monthly firm-specific data, we examine the performance of ESG-incorporated investing...

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing is about ethical investing. While ESG investing has garnered heightened attention, the research has not settled on whether ESG investing can “do well while doing good”. Using a proprietary ESG rating database of monthly firm-specific data, we examine the performance of ESG-incorporated investing...

This paper explores the relationship between economic freedom and a country’s daily COVID-19 fatalities using a panel data set for a sample ranging between 36 and 168 countries. Economically free countries possess characteristics that make it more resilient and capable of handling a health crisis. Therefore, we hypothesize that economically free co...

The economic feasibility and technological improvement to produce biodiesel from microalga, Chlorella vulgaris is investigated. The biodiesel would help Malaysia replace diesel with renewable and sustainable energy in the transportation sector. Accordingly, the Malaysian Agriculture and Plantation Greenhouse Gas Model is modified and extended to in...

Rice is a vital staple to Malaysians, and the fungus, Magnaporthe oryzae, can cause rice blast. The fungus proliferates rapidly, can devastate paddy fields, and persists in areas where rice is grown. Consequently, a partial equilibrium model is modified and extended to study the economic impact of this fungus on paddy. The model includes the larges...

Malaysia signed the Paris Agreement and agreed to lower its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by finding sustainable, renewable energy sources. One potential candidate is biodiesel made from the microalga, Chlorella vulgaris. Accordingly, this paper examines the economic feasibility of Malaysian agriculture to supply algal biodiesel and mitigate GHG e...

The economic feasibility and technological improvement to produce biodiesel from microalga, Chlorella vulgaris is investigated. The biodiesel would help Malaysia replace diesel with renewable and sustainable energy in the transportation sector. Accordingly, the Malaysian Agriculture and Plantation Greenhouse Gas Model is modified and extended to in...

We compare the performance of safe-haven assets during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and COVID-19 pandemic. First, regarding the GFC, we find, intermediate (weak) safe haven evidence for US dollar, Swiss franc and T-bonds (Gold, Silver and T-bills). Second, with regard to COVID, we find gold is very risky in some settings, while silver has beco...

Research indicates that white root rot disease can inflict severe economic damage on the Malaysian rubber industry, which is caused by the fungus, Rigidoporus microporus. Accordingly, the economic impact of this disease is assessed by the partial equilibrium model, called the Malaysian Agriculture and Plantation Greenhouse Gas Model. The model repr...

Malaysia fosters its economic growth with fossil fuels, which are not sustainable and raise atmospheric carbon dioxide. This study aims to assess the economic feasibility and sustainability of Chlorella vulgaris to create bioethanol for the transportation sector. A partial equilibrium model of the Malaysian agricultural markets is modified to inclu...

Three feedstocks, hemp, jatropha, and kenaf, are economically evaluated to produce biodiesel for Malaysia and whether they could improve its sustainability and reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the transportation sector. This study uses a partial equilibrium model, called the Malaysian Agriculture and Plantation Greenhouse Gas Model, to evaluate t...

We compare the performance of safe-haven assets during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and COVID-19 pandemic. First, regarding the GFC, we find, intermediate (weak) safe haven evidence for US dollar, Swiss franc and T-bonds (Gold, Silver and T-bills). Second, with regard to COVID, we find gold is very risky in some settings, while silver has beco...

Although Malaysia produces palm biodiesel to boost renewable energy, the palm oil mills produce large quantities of palm oil mill effluent (POME), which emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Microalga could consume the POME and supply lipids for biodiesel. To investigate the economic feasibility of biodiesel made from microalgae, this study employ...

We provide new insight into the oil curse hypothesis by considering the asymmetric reaction of aggregate and sector-level growth to positive and negative oil rent shocks. Using a Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) approach for the case of Malaysia, we find that economic growth responds to positive and negative oil rent shocks asymmetr...

In this study we evaluate the impact of US monetary policy between 2008-2018 (after implementation of quantitative easing policy) on assets, bonds, exchange rates of selected East Asian countries (Japan, South Korea, and Thailand). Our finding emphasized the significant role of US monetary policy on the East Asia financial markets especially in the...

In this study, the volatility of two Asian stock markets, Bursa Malaysia and Singapore Exchange, is estimated. The analysis used data on daily closing prices of the indices of the respective stock markets between July 1, 2019 and August 31, 2020. The sample is split into two subsample periods: Pre-COVID-19 pandemic and during the COVID-19 pandemic....

This paper explores several renewable energy sources to help Malaysia reduce its carbon footprint. Accordingly, this study employs a partial equilibrium model to examine the potential of the Malaysian agricultural sector to supply biodiesel, bioethanol, and bioelectricity on a commercial scale to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG). The model includes th...

This paper employs a partial equilibrium model to investigate the economic and environmental impact of commercial bioethanol production from biomass on the Malaysian agricultural markets. The results show that the palm oil mills can produce bioethanol commercially as the mills utilize the waste biomass created onsite and thus avoid the feedstock an...

The economic feasibility to produce commercial biobutanol from waste biomass is investigated. For this purpose, a partial equilibrium model of the Malaysian agricultural sector is employed to determine the large-scale impact of commercial acetone-butanol-ethanol production on the agricultural markets. The results indicate that Malaysian palm oil mi...

This paper explores the relationship between economic freedom and a country’s daily COVID-19 fatalities using a panel data set for a sample ranging between 36 and 164 countries. Economically free countries possess characteristics that make it more resilient and capable of handling a health crisis. Therefore, we hypothesize that economically free co...

Oil palm, a vital crop, contributes significantly to the economic and social development of Malaysia. However, a pathogen such as the Basal Stem Rot (BSR) poses a significant threat to the oil palm that would lead to significant economic losses. Motivated by this development, we utilize a partial equilibrium model of Malaysian agriculture to measur...

The research literature shows that investor sentiment is a contrarian predictor of aggregate stock market returns. However, we contend that investor sentiment only predicts aggregate stock market returns during high-sentiment states where overpricing is more prevalent than underpricing. Using a two-state predictive regression model, we find that th...

This paper explores a country’s socioeconomic characteristics effect on a country’s daily COVID-19 fatality rate. The analysis uses a two-step fixed effects estimator on a panel dataset using between 36 and 171 countries from December 31, 2020 to September 24, 2020. This estimator estimates the parameters of time-invariant variables. We find the gl...

We investigate the economic feasibility of bioelectricity production from biomass in Malaysia, and its impact on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and storage, agricultural prices, agricultural employment, and deforestation. For this purpose, we develop a partial equilibrium (PE) model that projects agricultural prices, production, imports, exports, d...

Recent evidence on the relationship between investor sentiment and subsequent monthly market returns in China shows that investor sentiment is a reliable momentum predictor since an increase (decrease) in investor sentiment leads to higher (lower) future returns. However, we suggest that momentum predictability of investor sentiment originates from...

We scrutinize China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand for the presence of rational bubbles by employing several tests on a large dataset that includes three bubble episodes. We also convert most tests into recursive to overcome structural breaks in the data that improve a bubble’s detection. The...

It has been observed that certain financial variables commonly exhibit switching behavior that depends on their magnitude, the phenomenon of which in general cannot be naturally captured by the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. To incorporate this observation and to decipher investors' behavior more appropriately, a switching-regime regressi...

Malaysia finds itself in a unique position. The large flourishing palm oil industry could produce enough biodiesel to completely offset Malaysia’s entire diesel consumption. Consequently, we employ a dynamic, partial equilibrium model of the Malaysian agricultural sector to predict whether palm biodiesel can offset diesel fuel. The model indicates...

Investor sentiment data for China (June 1996 to September 2017) Note: Please feel free to use this dataset. When doing so, please cite the following paper: Cheema Muhammad A., Man Yimei and Szulczyk Kenneth, 2018, Does Investor Sentiment Predict the Near-term Returns of the Chinese Stock Market? International Review of Finance, DOI: 10.1111/irfi....

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify current measures taken for financial crime’s prevention and detection in the context of Indonesia. Design/methodology/approach This study is based on data from articles in Indonesian newspapers relating to the current financial crimes, current measures of preventing financial crimes in Indonesia a...

We test the behavioural theories of overconfidence and underreaction on cross-sectional (CS) and times-series (TS) momentum returns in the Japanese stock markets. Both CS and TS momentum returns are large and significant when the market continues in the same state and turns into losses when the market transitions to another state, consistent with t...

Recent evidence on the relationship between investor sentiment and subsequent monthly market returns in China shows that investor sentiment is a reliable momentum predictor since an increase (decrease) in investor sentiment leads to higher (lower) future returns. However, we suggest that momentum predictability of investor sentiment originates from...

We re-examine the presence of rational speculative bubbles in the Singaporean and Indonesian stock markets in light of contradictory results in the literature. We employ a mix of descriptive statistics, explosiveness tests and duration dependence tests for an expanded dataset from 1970 to 2013 that covers at least two suspected bubble episodes - th...

We test the behavioural theories of overconfidence and underreaction on cross-sectional (CS) and time-series (TS) momentum returns in the Japanese stock markets. Both CS and TS momentum returns are large and significant when the market continues in the same state and turns into losses when the market transitions to another state, consistent with th...

This article studies the Malaysian palm oil industry, tracing the industry from the oil palm plantations and ending to its finished products. Palm oil industry is a prominent industry in Malaysia, creating economic growth and development. For instance, the government helped roughly 90,000 low-income settlers with their families to become oil palm t...

The Republic of Kazakhstan witnessed incredible economic growth with its real GDP growing at least 9% per year between 2000 and 2007. One must ask, is this economic growth sustainable? This paper examines Kazakhstan’s current development and the factors that would impact its economic growth and prosperity. Kazakhstan shares many characteristics wit...

I love teaching elementary game theory to my students and I converted my lecture notes into a book chapter. I tried to write the chapter as clear as possible to explain game theory to any reader. My textbook deals with the economics of government, I included a section where government becomes one or both players. The book is for undergraduate stude...

This research examines in detail the technology and economics of substituting biodiesel for diesel #2. This endeavor examines three areas. First, the benefits of biodiesel are examined, and the technical problems of large-scale implementation. Second, the biodiesel production possibilities are examined for soybean oil, corn oil, tallow, and yellow...

This research examines in detail the technology and economics of substituting biodiesel for diesel #2. This endeavor examines three areas. First, the benefits of biodiesel are examined, and the technical problems of large-scale implementation. Second, the biodiesel production possibilities are examined for soybean oil, corn oil, tallow, and yellow...

Bioenergy interest has been greatly stimulated by the fuel price rises in the late 2000s. Bioenergy is seen as a way to protect against the rising fossil fuel prices and the political insecurity of importing petroleum from the Middle East. Furthermore, growing evidence suggests that combustion of fossil fuels is precipitating climate change (Interg...

This article examines butanol and ethanol as transportation fuels for gasoline-powered engines. This paper examines two aspects. First, the fuel properties of butanol and ethanol are examined and compared to each other. Consequently, butanol overcomes three deficiencies of ethanol. Butanol has a higher energy content, butanol-gasoline blends do not...

This research examines in detail the technology and economics of substituting ethanol for gasoline. This endeavor examines three issues. First, the benefits of ethanol/gasoline blends are examined, and then the technical problems of large-scale implementation of ethanol. Second, ethanol production possibilities are examined in detail from a variety...

This research examines in detail the technology and economics of substituting biodiesel for diesel #2. This endeavor examines three areas. First, the benefits of biodiesel are examined, and the technical problems of large-scale implementation. Second, the biodiesel production possibilities are examined for soybean oil, corn oil, tallow, and yellow...

This book contains all information from economics the relationship between government and private markets. Most of the book examines government’s interference in the markets. However, towards the end of the book, several chapters are dedicated to the government’s interference of the whole economy. All economic analysis uses introductory economics....