Lim Hock Eam

Universiti Utara Malaysia | UUM · Economics

Purpose The authors analyse the determinants of loan defaults in micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) loans in India from the survival duration perspective to draw inferences that have implications for lenders and policymakers. Design/methodology/approach The authors use the Kaplan–Meier survivor function and the Cox Proportional Hazard mode...

The present study aims to decipher the drivers of default status (no default, single default, double default, and default to good) of 43,156 home-loan borrowers of a large home-loan lender having a national presence during 2003-18. Using the Multinomial Logit model, we analyse the repayment behaviour controlling the borrowers' loan and socio-de...

Teachers play an important role in nurturing human resources. Old wisdom regards teachers as the “engineer of the human soul”. Teacher happiness is very important since a happy teacher is productive, allowing him/her to play his/her role effectively. We need to understand the determinants of teacher happiness to formulate better policies for teache...

This paper looks at alternative financing for first-time buyers to accommodate an unprecedented occasion that may have a greater impact on homebuyers’ credibility and default risk. The existing financing under the common conventional mortgages may need to be studied to move towards Musharakah Mutanaqisah (MM) provided under Islamic financing. The s...

Malaysia has positioned itself to be a regional higher education hub and targeted to increase its number of international students to 250,000 by 2025, from 81,424 students in 2013. In the face of COVID-19, Malaysia is expected to experience stiff competitions with other countries in attracting international students. In essence, apart from attracti...

Superstitious belief of the number of eight as a lucky number is common among the Malaysian Chinese as its pronunciation carries the meaning of “prosperity”. Nevertheless, for the non-Chinese (i.e. Malay) who do not believe in superstition, it is just a neutral number. The existence of the two groups provides a natural setting to use the nonlinear...

The paper compares the worth of public and private university education. We develop a Public–Private University Worth parity index and provide empirical estimations to lend rigour in testing our main hypothesis that the type of university education does not matter in determining salaries and skills’ value-added. Using data from a recent questionnai...

The households’ savings in Malaysia have shown a deteriorating trend that negatively impacts their financial security. The Financial Inclusion and Capability Study of BNM (2016) indicates that merely 6 percent of Malaysians could survive for more than six months and 18 percent up to three months if they lose their main source of income. Thus, it is...

Purpose This study investigates factors contributing to residential mortgage loans default by utilizing a unique dataset of borrowers' default data from one of the pioneer lending institutions in Malaysia that provides home financing to the public. Studies on mortgage loan default have been extensively examined, but limited studies utilize the indi...

The Chinese society is well-known for its obsession towards number “8”. Eight is the luckiest number to the Chinese as its pronunciation resembles the meaning of prosperity, wealth or fortune. Prior research estimating the marginal effect of “8” on winning bid prices of car plate numbers attributes the positive impact of “8” on bid prices to supers...

The study aims to investigate encouraging social entrepreneurship development in a creative arts school in Malaysia via comparative qualitative research methods. As a result, activities organized by the creative arts faculty can be classified into 2 programmes, entrepreneurial development and community programmes that have the potential to be devel...

During the last two decades, economic studies on happiness have grown rapidly in particular, studies on the effect of income on happiness. Ng (Pac Econ Rev 7(1):51–63, 2002) has highlighted the East-Asian happiness gap. The East Asian countries, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Singapore, are performing well economically, however, performing...

Post global financial crisis central banks worldwide have been crucially concerned about ensuring financial stability in any economy. Malaysia is not an exception where Bank Negara Malaysia has been playing a pivotal role in ensuring continuing safety and soundness of the financial system of the country. In the present paper, we assess the stabilit...

Since 1990s, the increase in housing price, housing loan application rejection and bankruptcy due to housing loan default, have highlighted the need for a better way of home financing. Islamic home financing that promotes social well-being is a suitable alternative. Malaysia is in the forefront of Islamic financing system development, and Islamic h...

This paper uses a 2016/2017 sample of 1107 freshly minted university graduates from a public and a private university in Malaysia. Against a backdrop of an institutional setting very much different from that of western countries’ and issues of high living costs and graduate unemployment, we analyse how academic performance affects graduates’ employ...

The paper aims to develop and validate an analytical framework to assess the service quality and customer satisfaction and hence customer loyalty in banks. We develop a multivariate probit model for the evaluation of service quality and customer satisfaction and an ordered logit model for the rating of customer service of the most frequently used b...

Since the 1990s, Malaysia has achieved remarkable progress in its higher education enrolment However, this remarkable achievement could be dampened by the gap between student’s preferred and enrolled degree. Using a sample of Malaysian public university graduates, this paper measures the gap between preferred and enrolled degree and estimate its im...

This paper uses the gross domestic product growth rates of Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and China in an empirical examination to determine whether an integrated time series should be differenced before it is used for forecasting. The results reveal that Mallows model combination (M.M.A.) of original and differenced series is a better choice than j...

Purpose The paper aims to empirically assess the efficiency (transaction efficiency, intermediation efficiency and profit efficiency) of the retail branches of a large bank and identify the driver parameters of the same. Design/methodology/approach The authors use non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach to analyse the financial p...

The problem of poverty has attracted specific programmes within the circle of Government administrations particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. One of such programmes is the development strategy tool of provision of microcredit to the poor through Microfinance Institutions (MFIs). Although the issue of the influence of Microfinance loan on poverty red...

This study uses Phillips, Shi and Yu's (2015) bubble detection method to examine housing bubbles in Malaysia. We documented five positive bubbles and one negative bubble from 1988 to 2015, including the well-known 1997 Asian real estate bubble. The bubble that originated in April 2010 is the most prominent. It peaked in 2013. Since then, it has bee...

The purpose of this paper is to examine Malaysian motorists’ willingness to pay for Chinese lucky plate numbers. Regression analyses reveal that the Chinese bidders are more likely to win and pay significantly more for the Chinese lucky numbers than their non-Chinese counterparts. Consistent with resale motive considerations, the non-Chinese bidder...

This paper examines Easterlin paradox and estimates the determinants of happiness in Taiwan and Malaysia using the World Values Survey (WVS) data. Descriptive statistics and ordered logit model were used to analyse data. Results revealed that income, either at individual or national level, is positively and significantly associated with happiness....

As revealed by Malaysia’s bankruptcy statistics, around a quarter of bankruptcy in Malaysia is due to default of vehicle loan. This has led to the tightening up of vehicle loan underwriting and increased vehicle loan rejection rates. The need for a better credit risk scoring model is also raised by the banks. This warrants a study to estimate the d...

This paper aims to examine the efficiency of Malaysian public universities in comparison with the private and foreign universities using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The study involves 22 universities (17 public, 1 private and 4 foreign) and based on data between year 2008 and 2011. Results reveal that the most efficient Malaysian public univer...

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has long been an indicator of economic growth. There is an on-going debate on whether high growth increases well-being. The terms 'happiness' and 'life satisfaction' are often used interchangeably to explain the subjective well-being levels of individuals. This study examines if both happiness and life satisfaction of M...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the non-linear effects of the presence of women directors on the board on the financial performances of Malaysian companies which undertakes initial public offerings (IPOs). This paper also analyzes the impacts of non-executive directors and independent directors on their company performances. Desig...

This paper attempts to estimate the effectiveness of a cluster of determinants to increase gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate by using a combined statistical criteria approach. First, combining three ranking measures i.e., partial regression coefficients, adjusted R² and Bayesian information criterion (BIC) into one single ranking procedure f...

Aquaculture is the solution to the issue of over-exploited for capture fisheries and demand of fish that growing faster. In addition, the available resources keep decreasing and there is a need to fully utilize the resource efficiently in order to achieve sustainable development of aquaculture. Thus, this study estimates the technical efficiency of...

It is a truism that if Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) play their expected role, poverty will reduce and there will be more employment opportunity and adequate economic development particularly in the rural areas. Poverty is more devastating in Sub-Saharan Africa than the rest of the world. This paper examines the contributions of microfinance tow...

Forecasting of electricity demand provides an essential input for decision making in power operation and development. In Malaysia, Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) is using a well-established and sophisticated system to forecast the electricity demand. However, the reported predictive performance appears to be unsatisfactory if we compared to the other...

Accessibility and prudent utilization of microcredit by the poor can serve as a vital role in poverty reduction and economic development, particularly in a developing economy. This study examines the factors that determine the accessibility of the poor to microcredit loan in Nigeria. A total sum of 1,134 microfinance loan beneficiaries and non-bene...

Whether or not one can get employed, how much one can earn, and what types of job one gets are typically the main concerns of newly minted university graduates. In this study, we have collected data from fresh graduates of two public universities in Malaysia, i.e. on actual job choices that fresh graduates have made, their monthly earnings, and whe...

This paper estimates change of happiness of Malaysian graduates who are in the stage of transition from university to labour market and tests the voluntary unemployment hypothesis using a happiness approach. It is found that a substantial deterioration in the graduate's happiness occurs during the transition. The change in happiness of unemployed g...

Purpose – Previous studies on the effect of entrepreneur education are not comprehensive. Thus, estimating the effect of entrepreneur education is imperative. According to the Malaysian Ministry of Education (MoE), only 1.7 percent (as of 2013) of university graduates are self-employed, that is managing one’s own business or known as graduate entre...

Microfinance programme has been generally regarded as a development strategy that can enhance the economic performance of the poor. The government of Nigeria has made concerted efforts to alleviate poverty in the country. One of such efforts is Poverty alleviation through Microfinance loan but poverty still remains pervasive and widespread in the c...

This paper describes the development of a prediction model for the early identification of low employability graduates in Malaysia. A total of five proportional hazard models are estimated and using the criteria of percentage correctly and wrongly predicted, a prediction model is selected based on the percentage correctly predicted. The percentile...

This study examines the relationship between age and productivity measured based on key performance indicators (KPI) amongst academic staff at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). Three models were used in the analysis: linear, quadratic and piece-wise spline. The linear model indicates that age is negatively related to KPI. The quadratic model shows a...

Purpose – This study examined the effectiveness of Finishing School programmes in enhancing the employability of graduates from institutions of higher learning. The perceptions of the graduates and employers towards the effectiveness of the programmes were analyzed. The effectiveness of Finishing School programmes evaluated through a graduate mar...

This paper examines using housing supply as proxy to house prices, the causal relationship on house prices among 8 states in Malaysia by applying the Engle-Granger cointegration test and Granger causality test approach. The target states are Perak, Selangor, Penang, Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur (WPKL or Kuala Lumpur), Kedah, Negeri Sembilan, S...

Electricity is one of the important energy sources. A sufficient supply of electricity is vital to support a country’s development and growth. Due to the changing of socio-economic characteristics, increasing competition and deregulation of electricity supply industry, the electricity demand forecasting is even more important than before. It is imp...

This paper examines the effect of TOE (Technology, Organizational and External) factors on the usage of e-government among Jordanian public listed companies. Results reveal that in Jordan, companies that are categorized as basic adopters of e-government mainly used e-government for seeking information and contracts (procurement) and TOE factors are...

Using of the case of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM), this study aims to estimate the factors that influence the entrepreneurship career choice among UUM students and graduates, in particular, the effect of educational factor on the probability that a graduate will choose entrepreneurship as his or her career. Results of descriptive statistics reve...

This chapter examines graduate labor market performance and its implications in the design of a student loan scheme for higher education in Malaysia. The current mortgage-type loan scheme under the National Higher Education Fund Corporation (NHEFC) creates a major problem in terms of loan defaults which contribute to high implicit subsidies and con...

Abstrak Pencemaran air dari sisa kumbahan industri merupakan satu isu alam sekitar yang memberi kesan kepada Malaysia dari segi kualiti alam sekitar. Walau pun negara ini telah melaksanakan pelbagai peraturan pencegahan pencemaran, masalah ini masih tidak dapat diselesaikan dan syarikat-syarikat yang berkaitan masih mencemar alam sekitar. Oleh itu...

Water pollution by industrial effluentis one of the major environmental problems affecting Malaysia in term of environmental quality. Although the country has implemented a range of anti-pollution legislation, the problem has not been resolved and companies continue to pollute on a large scale. This makes it important to understand why current envi...

This paper proposes a procedure called forecast weight averaging which is a specific combination of forecast weights obtained from different methods of constructing forecast weights for the purpose of improving the accuracy of pseudo out of sample forecasting. It is found that under certain specified conditions, forecast weight averaging can lower...

This paper investigates the forecasting ability of Mallows Model Averaging (MMA) by conducting an empirical analysis of five Asia countries, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and China's GDP growth rate. Results reveal that MMA has no noticeable differences in predictive ability compared to the general autoregressive fractional integrated...

Our empirical results show that we can predict GDP growth rate more accurately in continent with fewer large economies, compared to smaller economies like Malaysia. This difficulty is very likely positively correlated with subsidy or social security policies. The stage of economic development and level of competiveness also appears to have interact...

Huge capital outflow from Malaysia has given negative impact on Real GDP and disaggregate sectors. The relationship between capital outflow and real GDP are still unclear. With regard to this issue, this particular study attempt to identify the relationship between capital outflow and real GDP, and sectors including agricultures, mining and quarryi...

This paper proposes a procedure called forecast weight averaging which is a specific combination of forecast weights obtained from different methods of constructing forecast weights for the purpose of improving the accuracy of pseudo out of sample forecasting. It is found that under certain specified conditions, forecast weight averaging can lower...

This study investigates e-government adoption among businesses in Jordan. Specifically, the objectives of the study are twofold: (a) to determine the status (level) of e-government adoption among businesses in Jordan, (b) to identify the factors that drive e-government adoption among businesses in Jordan. For this purpose, an integrated theoretical...

This study investigates e-government adoption among businesses in Jordan. Specifically, the objectives of the study are twofold: (a) to determine the status (level) of e-government adoption among businesses in Jordan, (b) to identify the factors that drive e-government adoption among businesses in Jordan. For this purpose, an integrated theoretical...

This paper examines the factors that influence e-commerce adoption levels among SMEs in Malaysia. Based on Technological-Organisational-External (TOE) framework, it is found that external support is significant across all e-commerce adoption levels. This finding suggests that future policy to encourage e-commerce uptake in Malaysia should focus on...

This study investigates e-government adoption among businesses in Jordan. Specifically, the objectives of the study are twofold: (a) to determine the status of e-government adoption among businesses in Jordan. (b) To examine the impact of e-government adoption on firms' performance. For purpose, an integrated theoretical framework for assessing e-g...

This paper estimates determinants of individual unemployment duration of Malaysian graduates. Estimation result suggests that lack of proficiency in English, a mismatch between the type of graduation degree and the requirements for the available jobs in the labor market, family background, state of happiness in overall life, self-expectation on one...

Fuad Mohamed Berawi, Asan Ali Golam Hassan, Lim Hock, Norehan Abdullah, Selamah Maamor, Hussin Abdullah (2001). Kemasukan buruh Thailand ke negeri-negeri utara Semenanjung: Profil dan implikasi ekonomi (Laporan akhir penyelidikan tidak diterbitkan). Universiti Utara Malaysia. url: http://repo.uum.edu.my/8127/

The persistence of the graduate unemployment problem warrants the need for predicting factors that are associated with low employability graduates. It is found that ethnicity, English language proficiency and types of degree obtained are significant predictors of graduates' employability which is measured either by the number of days being unemploy...

The main objective of this research is to find out the effectiveness of location incentive in attracting Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to a certain industrial location in the state of Kedah. The location choice identified in this research would be Sungai Petani and non-Sungai Petani industrial areas. By using the logit model, we found that lo...

This paper suggests that instrumental variable regression is a good alternative to nonlinear specification model when estimating the impacts of oil shocks on GDP growth in Malaysia.

This paper studies the determinants of willingness to give bribe among university students, in case of traffic offence. Marginal benefit (time and money saved) that obtained in giving the bribe is the main determinants. This implies that policy of anti-corruption by increase the fine is most likely to be ineffective. The finding of morality attachm...

The main objective of this research is to fi nd out the eff ectiveness of location incentive in att racting Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to a certain industrial location in the state of Kedah. The location choice identifi ed in this research would be Sungai Petani and non-Sungai Petani industrial areas. By using the logit model, we found tha...

This paper examines the feasibility of early identification of low employability graduates using statistical profiling models. The applied statistical profiling model successfully predicted correctly 88 per cent of the low employability graduates using in-sample evaluation and 67 per cent correctly using out-of-sample evaluation. It is suggested th...

Data on the labor market outcomes of graduates of the Universiti Utara Malaysia were analyzed using an ordered logit model. The type of degree, ethnicity, and number of job applications submitted are found to be significant determinants of labor market outcomes. Accounting graduates were found to obtain the best labor market outcomes. Malay graduat...

This paper uses data of reported happiness which is measured at 4, 5, 7 and 11 likert-scale points. A group of 137 respondents was selected to study the comparison problem on the estimated mean happiness using direct rescaling. It is found that the 11-point scale’s estimated mean happiness is significantly higher than the 4 and 7-point scale. This...

This paper proposes an alternate method of estimating the employment performance indicator using the Cox Proportional Hazard model with competing risk framework. Simple aggregation and the logit model have also been used in the estimating for comparison purpose. Using the data of Universiti Utara Malaysia graduates, the study finds that the Bachelo...

ABSTRAK Kajian ini mengkaji pengaruh faktor harga dan pendidikan ke atas gelagat pembelian VCD/CD cetak rompak di Kedah. Dengan model Tobit yang dianggarkan, kajian ini mendapati bahawa harga rendah VCD/CD cetak rompak adalah penarik utama. Tetapi, faktor harga ini didapati tidak signifikan di dalam pembelian kuantiti VCD/CD cetak rompak. Tahap pen...

This study finds that the work stress levels that are faced by ICT personnel range from mild to moderate. The estimated probit model finds that there is personality differentiation in the effectiveness of stress coping strategies. The significant and effective coping strategy is “seeking treatment”. The “escape from situation” coping strategy is fo...

It is found that using all suitable lags of one instrument can increase the efficiency of finite sample IV estimator tremendously. The former is about 10% more efficient than the latter. The efficiency gains by using all suitable lags of one instrument is approximately about 1.1 times of what can be obtained by the inclusion of a similarly powerful...

This paper revisits the main problems faced by linear regression models. The exogenous condition for linear regression is verified by using the triangular law of vectors and dot product of vectors. Errors in variables and missing variables are analyzed analytically. This paper shows that these two problems will cause large sample bias of LS estimat...