Normaz WANA Ismail

Universiti Putra Malaysia | UPM · Department of Economics

Amidst the COVID-19 crisis, the Malaysian government responded decisively, implementing substantial fiscal expansion measures to combat the pandemic's spread and safeguard the economy. In the second quarter of 2020, the current account surplus decreased to RM5.6 billion, or 1.7% of GDP, raising concerns of a twin-deficit. Keynesians relate fiscal d...

This research aims to ascertain the pattern and challenges of food access among the communities in Baling, Kedah, Malaysia. This study used descriptive analysis to investigate the degree of food security experienced by households in Baling, Kedah's rural and urban districts. The income level, the proportion of household spending on food, the kinds...

This research examines Malaysian exports, capital, exchange rate, and income growth through the balance of payments constrained growth model. Malaysia's economy has grown slower in the last several years, as seen by the country's dropping goods exports, weaker ringgit, and decreased influx of foreign capital. This study examines potential economic...

The palm oil industry in Malaysia has faced issues of lower palm oil price and limited land area, and these issues have created a challenging environment for plantation companies to operate in. Plantation companies are constrained in maximizing their profits. Thus, this paper aims to examine the Economic Value Added (EVA) and the factors that influ...

Background Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) have a vast and rising impact on households at all income levels across the globe, particularly with poorer people bearing the burden. Hence, this study examines NCDs’ effects on Malaysia’s B40 group (low-income earners). Methods This study used the 2015 National Health and Morbidity Survey, a population...

The successful implementation of eleven Malaysia Plans in charting and navigating economic growth has seen the transformation of Malaysia from an agricultural economy to an industrialised one and subsequently into a services-based economy. However, despite the developmental progress, Malaysia's growth quality was highly debatable due to the lower i...

This study employed the Casella (1996) model and its extension Badinger & Breuss (2006) to examine the relationship between the size of a country and the effects of trade bloc enlargement on the extensive margin of trade. Therefore, the export of large and small European countries to African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries on the extensive...

The argument on the behaviour of government expenditure toward reducing the poverty level is still controversial among economists and policymakers. This study investigates the role of government development expenditure in alleviating poverty in Malaysia. The study employs a nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) model from 1970 to 2019 us...

Due to rapid urbanization, solid waste management (SWM) is a major challenge in Malaysia, hence the need to sustainably manage it. Compared with other states, Selangor produces the highest volume of domestic waste. Most of the state’s waste is generated in Shah Alam City. This condition is expected to worsen because the population of Shah Alam is p...

While studies have demonstrated that air pollution can be catastrophic to the population’s health, few empirical studies are found in the economic literature because a considerable proportion of the evidence comes from epidemiological studies. Because of the crucial role of governance in the health community, good governance has been a contentious...

The gap created by the mismatch between high domestic demand and low domestic supply of halal meat has been filled by ruminant meat sourced from the international markets. However, the exporting countries are still limited due to stringent halal requirements. This study examined the competitive advantage of trading partners in the exportation of ru...

This study investigates the effects of rent seeking activities on economic growth in 53 middle-income countries. Our data spans the period 2011 to 2020. We use the generalized method of moments estimator to examine the effects of rent-seeking activities on economic growth. Our study also includes several control variables, namely democratic account...

China has been the world’s largest market for industrial robots since 2013. Industrial robots improve accuracy, safety, and efficiency in industrial production but have a substantial impact on the labor market. This investigation uses the task-based model to explore the relationship between industrial robots and employment across industries. This s...

Malaysia has been continuously practicing the fertigation system, which is applying fertiliser solutions with irrigation water, typically through a micro-sprinkler or a drip system. This system has helped numerous small and medium-scale agropreneurs (agriculture entrepreneur) develop constant business. At a larger scale, fertigation is a means to a...

The growth of the palm oil industry in Malaysia has established a demand for exports among trading partners worldwide. As a result, Malaysia has gained a reputation as the world's largest producer and exporter of palm oil. Crude palm oil production in 1980 was 2.50 million tonnes; however, by 2019 it had increased to 19.86 million tonnes due to the...

The clarion call by the international development agencies to the developing countries, upon strengthening the agricultural sector with modern technological connectivity, so that massive unemployed youth can be employed in the sector could not be realized without effective youth policies. However, designing such policies that can encourage more you...

Remittances play an important role in human capital development in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly when it comes to helping families to pay for their children’s education, access health care and alleviate poverty. However, many countries on the continent lack the financial systems to efficiently facilitate the inflows of remittances and allow them...

As agropreneurs of fresh fruits and vegetables are important contributors to the economy, supply chain risk management is vital for their survival and growth. Therefore, this study examined the mediating effect of supply chain risk management in reducing the impact of supply chain risks and increasing supply chain performance among small scale agro...

Trade facilitation reduces trade costs and eases the movement of goods and services. Studies have shown that trade flows increased by improving the trade facilitation process and reducing trade costs. The study aims to estimate the effects of trade facilitation enhancement on trade costs in 111 developed and developing countries over the 2008 to 20...

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic generated an upsurge in demand for medical products. Trade policy changes, including export restrictions and import reforms, have led to a shortage of medical products. The World Health Organization has recommended countries to encourage local production and identify various import sources for medical pro...

The food processing industry was reviewed as a top priority for industrial development and targeted to lead greater growth in Malaysia’s Industrial Masterplan (NIMP). Leading to industrial development, this paper highlighted the relationship between innovative activities (R&D expenditure and ICT expenditure) and productivity with other variables li...

This article analyses the importance of high-technology trade as a channel of economic growth to ease Malaysia out of the middle-income trap. This study also wonders upon the missing absorptive capabilities that validate the likelihoods of dismal gross domestic product (GDP) growth since the 1990s. Using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) ap...

The international development agencies have made a clarion call to the developing countries, upon strengthening their agricultural sectors with a modern technological connectivity, so that massive unemployed youth can be employed in the sector. The insufficient of youth data and studies becomes a major challenge in these countries. However, emphasi...

Purpose This study aims to examine the linear and nonlinear remittance–institutional quality link in developing countries. Design/methodology/approach This study investigates the nonlinear relationship between remittance and political institutional quality in a panel of 97 developing countries using annual data of over nine years from 2009 to 2017...

The information about the economic and financial aspects of stingless bees farming is still limited along with some issues of high selling price and expenses. Therefore, the study initially aims to describe comprehensively cost-benefit, and break-even analysis of stingless bees farming in Malaysia. The study uses primary data and employs about 124...

Air pollution is recognised as one of the main factors affecting the health status of the population. Since environmental degradation mitigation works through public institutions, the governance quality plays a vital role in the pollution health effect. Noting that governance role may be relevant to ensure effective health care delivery, this study...

The commercial use of genetically modified organisms (GMO) is increasing in both developed and developing countries. Problems with the sale of GMO in international trade are also increasing given the diverse regulatory frameworks needed to ship GMO products globally. One of the problems is the asynchronous authorisation which has led to low level p...

Economic Annals is an international professional journal published quarterly by the Faculty of Economics, University of Belgrade. It publishes research in all areas of economics and business administration, particularly for transition and emerging economies. The journal encourages the submission of original unpublished works, not under consideratio...

Lifestyle changes due to urbanization in Malaysia are increasingly pronounced. Although only an upper middle-income country, obesity levels among Malaysian children were comparable to children from high-income countries. Hence, this paper aims to investigate the prevalence of obesity among children, including the impact of urbanization and parental...

This paper examined major credit requirements of financial institutions in providing credit to paddy farmers of Jigawa state, Nigeria. Data were collected in 2019 from three selected paddy farming local government areas of the state. A total of 120 respondents were randomly selected through a multistage sampling technique, and a questionnaire. The...

Graduate unemployment exhibits a clear increasing global trend, and Malaysia is no exception. The unemployment rate among graduates is witnessing a considerable upsurge, growing from 43,800 in 2000 (15% of total unemployed) to more than 175,500 in 2017 (35%). Numerous programmes have been implemented in order to secure jobs for the unemployed in th...

Although industrialisation is a crucial aspect of economic growth across developing nations, through the release of air contaminants, industrial activities may also create adverse environmental health consequences. Noting that continuous production and other economic activities are crucial for continued survival, this study explores this issue by i...

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is one of the highest recipients of remittances; however, this is inconsistent with the region’s growth and the state of its weak healthcare systems. This paper therefore analyses the effect of remittances on health outcomes for 39 selected SSA countries over the period 1996 to 2016. It considers the channels through which...

Genetically modified (GM) foods are produced from the development of modern biotechnology and gene combinations of the same or different species. GM foods have become an important issue among Muslim consumers in consuming halalan toyyiban food produced from GM foods. This in line with the decision of Muslim consumers in the selection of halal food...

This paper aims to empirically examine the impact of high-technology trade on employment. A dynamic labour demand equation is employed to investigate the impact of high-tech trade on employment in 20 high-tech exporting countries. Using data from 2007 to 2016, this study highlights some evidence on the negative relationship between high-tech trade...

A substantial proportion of the population is still struggling to achieve socioeconomic and good health, i.e., the low-income groups. The low-income group in Malaysia might bear a higher burden of out-of-pocket health expenditure (OOPHE) and health challenges, mainly related to non-communicable diseases (NCD). The costs are sometimes high enough so...

This paper examines the impact of foot and mouth disease (FMD) outbreaks on meat prices in Malaysia (i.e., at wholesale and retail of beef, imported mutton and mutton) from January 2000 to December 2015. The data were analyzed using time series methods (i.e. unit root test and error correction model). The results demonstrate that frequent FMD outbr...

Abstract Trade facilitation has gained more attention in a recent trade research area and has become more important trade policy measures particularly after trade liberalization reform takes place. Trade liberalization has resulted in a significant tariff reduction in most of the countries including ASEAN countries. This has forced ASEAN countries...

This study investigates the relationship between remittance and economic growth in a panel of 93 low and middle-income countries using annual data from 2009 to 2017. The estimated model using system GMM (SYS-GMM) revealed that remittance has a significant negative impact on growth after removing outliers. However, the result before outliers was ind...

The main objective of this study was to identify the issues and challenges faced by Malaysian fruitproducers and exporters in complying with the Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures of the importingcountries. Due to these measures, the exportation of high-value tropical fruits such as mango, pineapple,durian and starfruit to countries with str...

Purpose Digital technology is gaining attention among many scholars as a way to facilitate trade. This study aims to investigate three important digital dimensions (DD), namely, digital infrastructure, digital usage and digital security on trade using selected Asian countries and 20 selected trade partners. Digital infrastructure focussed on the av...

This paper examines the link between trade facilitation and extensive margin for 111 countries over the period of 2008 to 2014. The study employs a panel pseudo-maximum likelihood (PPML) method to estimate the model. We measure trade facilitation using more comprehensive measures of enabling trade index (ETI); market access, border administration,...

This study investigates the asymmetric effects of public debt on financial development in Malaysia. Employing time series data for the period of 1980-2015 and nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lags framework, this study found that public debt levels are significantly linked to financial development in both short-run and long-run. The findings al...

This study investigates the nonlinear relationship between political institutions and financial inclusion in a panel of 74 developing countries using annual data from 2007 to 2016. This study uses the financial inclusion index and two components of financial inclusion, namely access and availability to financial services. The estimated model using...

Due to their perishable nature, the supply chain of fresh fruits and vegetables is sensitive and uncertain, which poses several risks to agropreneurs of fresh fruits and vegetables in Malaysia. The country's farming community faces dire challenges in terms of escalating food production costs and the need to push for higher productivity gains. In pa...

This research examines the major supply chain risks and their respective brink affecting operations of agropreneurs of fresh fruits and vegetables in Malaysia. The primary data was collected through a questionnaire survey with a total of 395 agropreneurs in peninsular Malaysia. The study utilized a snowballing and convenience sampling method. Based...

Remittances have been blamed for causing real exchange rate appreciation by raising the relative prices of nontraded goods and services in the recipient countries. However, empirical studies seeking to support this claim are lacking in Asia, despite the huge amount of remittances received by the region. In view of that, this paper used a panel data...

Stronger intensity and frequent arrival of the El Niño- Southern Oscillation (ENSO) caused varied temperature and wildly varying precipitation with drought and flood conditions that threaten paddy production. Using the Pooled Mean Group estimation method, this study investigates the long run and short run relationship of ENSO impact on Southeast As...

There is a dearth of empirical and theoretical investigation in the field of supply chain risk management. Even though SCRM is an important component in supply chain management research, there is still a lack of understanding regarding the term and the concept to develop advantageous SCRM. In the literature of SCRM, different aspects have been disc...

The world has seen continued famine, starvation, and malnutrition. Starvation and malnutrition have a negative impact on health, leading to poor productivity, and thus gradually affecting overall economic growth. This paper estimates the impact of food security on the economic growth of dry-land developing countries. The objective of this study is...

In this paper, we examine the relationship between house price and Islamic bank stability in Malaysia. In particular, in relating to Islamic bank stability to Malaysian house price changes, we evaluate the nature of the relationship from the perspective of nonlinearities. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model is applied to a sample that c...

Genetically modified (GM) crops have been commercially grown for more than two decades. In 2016, approximately 10% of the total global crop acreage was planted with GM crops, predominantly maize, soybean, cotton and canola. The number of countries involved has constantly increased, so have the global trade. However, regulatory frameworks for GM cro...

The benefits of trade agreements on trade activities are notably acknowledged but the impact on bilateral trade costs remains obscure and have to be further examined. First, this study will construct the micro measure of bilateral trade cost, and then the constructed trade costs will be utilized to estimate the impact of trade arrangements on trade...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the house market in Malaysia from 2002 to 2015. Specifically, the macroeconomic determinants on the house price and house demand are investigated. Design/methodology/approach Structural Vector Autoregressive Regression was adopted to estimate the unexpected changes in both house demand (residential...

Simple theoretical consideration suggests that the flows of workers’ remittances ought to be partly driven by domestic macroeconomic indicators. However, empirical research seeking to support this claim has produced mixed results. In this paper, using a Pooled Mean Group (PMG) estimator on panel data from 15 labour-sending Asian countries during th...

The objective of this paper is to examine the economic contribution of batik industry to the Malaysian economy by using the input-output analysis technique. Today, batik industry is known as a successful cottage industry. Throughout the years of its existence, batik industry has contributed to creating jobs for local communities, raise the prestige...

The proliferation of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) is a phenomenon in the world trading system. The number of FTA establishments has increased tremendously, from 55 in 1995 to more than 250 by end of 2014. Malaysia alone has signed twelve FTAs involving twenty trading partners. Using the most aggregated data at the Harmonized System six-digit level...

The energy issue has been hotly debated whether is about the production, consumption or price due to its major importance in our daily lives where its use is inevitable. The primary objective of this paper is to investigate the long-term relationship between energy consumption and economic output in Malaysia when including trade openness. This focu...

The benefits of trade agreements on trade activities are notably acknowledged but the impact on bilateral trade costs remains obscure and have to be further examined. First, this study will construct the micro measure of bilateral trade cost, and then the constructed trade costs will be utilized to estimate the impact of trade arrangements on trade...

Services trade is regarded as a new source of income, especially for developing countries. Even though services trade only represent 20.2 per cent (2010) to total world trade, interestingly, recent trend shows that the share for developing countries in services trade increased to 32 per cent (2010) as compared to only 20 per cent in 1990. Moreover,...

This study ascertains impacts of financial development, oil price on economic growth in African OPEC members. Many studies have been done on financial development and economic growth, without considering the nature of the economic dependency. This study considered the African OPEC members has oil-dependent economies. The study used dynamic panel me...

The application of agricultural biotechnology attracts the interest of many stakeholders. Genetically modified (GM) crops, for example, are rapidly increase in production for the last 20 years. Despite its known benefits, GM crops also pose many concerns not only to human and animal health but also the environment. Malaysia, in general, allows the...

The past decade has seen the rapid development of the tourist industry in Southeast Asia. There is increasing concern that tourism is highly affecting CO2 emissions, but the nature of the relationship is still unclear. The main target of this paper is to investigate the existence of a linear and/or nonlinear relationship between tourism and CO2 emi...

Generally, over 40 percent of the world area is categorized as dry-land developing countries where its accommodate 2.3 billion people mostly in Africa and Asia, and in these regions about one billion people rely on dry-land ecosystem services through rain-fed, irrigated farming and pastoralism. Dry-land areas are categorized by a scarcity of water,...

This paper studies how exchange rate policy influences households' consumption styles represented by food imports. We provide an empirical analysis based on the Malaysian annual data from 1980-2012. An auto-regressive distributed lag model (ARDL) was utilized in interpreting long-run elasticities of food import demand as a cointegrating relation, a...

This paper attempts to empirically examine the determinants of service export in selected developing Asian countries (China, Hong Kong, South Korea, India, Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Turkey). The study conducted a static linear panel data analysis on annual data covering the period of 1985-...

This paper examines the contribution of batik industry to the national economy through the idea of inter-industry linkages. Batik industry's contribution to Malaysian economy is through the performances of the manufacturing in textiles, the development of tourism with being high-valued heritage products, and to the total Malaysian craft sales. The...

This study examined the long run impact of oil export and food production on inflation in African OPEC member countries. The countries consist Algeria, Angola, Libya and Nigeria. This study applied Pedroni cointegration test. In addition, dynamic panel ARDL models (PMG and MG estimators) were also used. This study found that the long-run coefficien...

An ageing population has a significant impact in terms of health care costs to the elderly, their families and societies. The elderly consume a greater volume of health care facilities and bear out-of-pocket (OOP) health expenditure for their age-related diseases (ARD) physically or mentally. The most common ARD that relates to cognitive functions...

In this paper, we investigate the impact of trade liberalization on tax structure in a panel 97 developing countries for the period 1993-2012. Our empirical results, based on the fixed-effect estimator, reveal that trade liberalization in the form of trade openness did not seem to have a strong impact on major tax sources of developing countries. I...

The relationship between environmental factors and human health has long been a concern among academic researchers. We use two indicators of environmental pollution, namely particulate matter (PM10) and carbon dioxide (CO2) to examine the effects of poor air quality on human mortality. This study explores an issue that has largely been ignored, par...

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of aging on economic growth. The study used dynamic growth model and employed Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach for the period of 1980 to 2011. Three proxies for aging are used namely fertility rate, life expectancy and old dependency ratio. However, only fertility rate is detected to...

This paper examines the relationship between trade liberalization and trade tax revenues applying an advanced dynamic panel threshold technique. The empirical analysis is based on a large panel-dataset including 103 developing countries for the period 1993-2012. The empirical finding results indicate that the relationship between trade liberalizati...