Inbound cross-border tourism between Myanmar and Yunnan, China, has expanded steadily over the past two decades and has become an increasingly important driver of regional economic interaction and people-to-people exchange. Despite this growth, empirical research examining the determinants of cross-border tourism demand in the China–Myanmar border region remains limited. This study aims to investigate the key macro-level factors that determine changes in inbound cross-border tourist arrivals from Myanmar to China, with particular emphasis on Burmese one-day visitors (excursionists). The study adopts a quantitative approach by integrating the push–pull framework with the gravity model to analyze cross-border tourism demand. A time series of secondary data was collected from multiple official online databases and analyzed using descriptive statistics and OLS regression techniques. The empirical findings indicate that real GDP in both the source country (Myanmar) and the destination region (Dehong, Yunnan) significantly influences cross-border visitor arrivals, suggesting that economic growth on both sides of the border plays a critical role in stimulating tourism flows. However, the results also reveal that destination infrastructure-related variables, particularly traffic road density, exert a negative effect on Burmese excursionist arrivals. This finding suggests the existence of a “crowding out effect”, whereby infrastructure improvements may increasingly favor long-stay tourists at the expense of short-term cross-border visitors. The study contributes to the literature on cross-border tourism demand by providing empirical evidence from an underexplored border region and offers policy implications for enhancing regional tourism cooperation, border connectivity, and tourism-led economic development between Myanmar and China.

During Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis, policymakers rely on Keynesian-economic stimulus packages (ESP) to help economic agents in surviving from economic stagnation. However, precautionary savings phenomenon can affect ESP effectiveness negatively over time according to precautionary savings theory and permanent income hypothesis, which is greatly underexplored in the literature. Thereupon, this study takes initiative to examine how unprecedented non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) that are induced by the pandemic cause to the precautionary savings. A critical review was employed and the results highlighted that NPIs, heightened economic uncertainty, long-term income expectations, structural financial constraints, and resultant behavioural shifts are key factors of the precautionary savings behaviour’s outbreak. Besides, degree of economic uncertainty—shaped by severity and duration of the NPIs, future employment prospects, and perceived long-term income shocks are key factors in determining the impact of precautionary savings behaviour on demand transmission mechanism of the Keynesian-ESP. This study concludes that ESP has generate diminishing marginal utilities of consumption and investment relative to saving. These findings call attention to practitioners for a re-examination of Keynesian frameworks by integrating behavioural insights from the other theories, while suggesting policymakers to implement complementary strategies, targeted fiscal measures, and clear communication in alleviating uncertainty and stabilizing lifetime income expectations during crises. Due to some methodological and theoretical limitations, the precise impact of precautionary savings behaviour on the effectiveness of Keynesian-ESP remains ambiguous in this critical review. Thereupon, future research should adopt more robust empirical methodologies and structural models that incorporate longer time horizons and finer micro-level data.

The issue of school dropout has been long rooted in Malaysia. To address this issue effectively, further insight into the predictors of the school dropout and the early statistical identification of dropouts are crucial. Nevertheless, uncertainty has been persistent on these two aspects. This paper aims to identify the predictors and assess the feasibility of early identification of school dropouts. Using a school administrative database that comprised data on more than 100,000 students, the school dropout predictors, such as gender, academic achievement, and household income were identified. The estimated model correctly identified early on the 20.83% of the school dropouts. This is substantially higher than the overall sample mean of school dropouts (5%). Thus, it is feasible to identify early on the school dropout statistically. The findings have provided insightful inputs that could strengthen our intervention strategies and policies to help alleviate the problem of school dropout in Malaysia.

PurposeBy exploiting the exogeneity of the unexpected 2015 European refugee crisis, the paper's purpose is to analyze the causal impact of the crisis on resident immigrants' life satisfaction. Due to the ongoing anti-immigrant sentiments, we argue that the refugee crisis and the build-up to it affect how resident immigrants are looked upon in a negative light; this in turn could consequently be reflected in their life satisfaction. We anchor the natives' hostility toward the refugees and immigrants on the group-threat theory.Design/methodology/approachUsing two waves of the European Values Study, we exploit the exogenous source of variations generated by the crisis and employ a difference-in-differences estimation framework to identify the causal impact.FindingsOur findings indicate negative impact of the refugee crisis on resident immigrants' life satisfaction. We find negative impact of the refugee crisis on the life satisfactions of resident immigrants with low education levels. Our results also suggest that resident immigrants in Western European countries experience lower life satisfaction after the crisis.Originality/valueThe literature so far mostly revolves around the impact of the crisis on natives' objective well-being. We find it surprising that the literature has not fully utilized the rare opportunity afforded by the refugee crisis to analyze its impact on resident immigrants' subjective well-being.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-01-2024-0093

We estimate the distributional effects of freedom and income on life satisfaction (LS) for East Asian Chinese societies through an ordinal parametric quantile regression approach. The results show that freedom and income exhibit positive and mostly significant effects across societies and LS levels. The freedom effects generally become larger for those at higher LS quantiles. However, the income effects decline as the LS quantile level increases. Thus, one may have a trade-off between freedom and income without compromising individual LS. The trade-off of freedom (income) for income (freedom) is more pronounced for people at a lower (higher) LS level.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the drivers of default in the Malaysian housing market in the light of various policy interventions by the country’s central bank, and the government’s expressed concern to ensure balanced growth in the market. This paper assesses the importance of considering the endogeneity of loan-to-value (LTV) in predicting housing loan default and its implications. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, the author addresses the endogeneity problem in the LTV variable using two instrumental variables (IV) in this probit regression: national residential property gains tax and the statutory reserve ratio of Bank Negara Malaysia. This study uses the instrumental variable probit model to consider endogeneity bias. This study assumes a latent (unobservable) variable (Y*), representing a borrower’s tendency to default, which is associated linearly with the borrower’s and loan characteristics and other variables (Xi). This study uses individual borrower-level information of 43,156 housing loan borrowers from the files of a well-established housing bank in Malaysia. Findings This study’s results confirm that endogeneity causes a substantial difference in the magnitude of the estimated effects of LTV on the default tendency. At the lower values of LTV, the probability of default is over-estimated, and at the higher values, the default probability is substantially underestimated. Endogeneity bias also affects the estimated coefficients of loan and borrower characteristics. The authors find that the interest rate is less relevant in predicting loan default. Other loan characteristics, such as loan age, tenure, payment amount and the built-up area, are relevant. This study’s result confirms that the borrower’s location matters, and an increase in state gross domestic product per capita and an increase in the supply of residential units reduce default probability. Research limitations/implications The present study did not explore the applicability of the “equity theory of default” in the Malaysian housing market. This study did not assess “strategic default” issues and the effect of borrowers’ characteristics, personality traits and self-control of Malaysian housing loan borrowers in the mortgage decision-making process. The evolving dynamics of the Malaysian housing market microstructure in property valuation remained unexplored in the present study. Practical implications The findings have crucial relevance in the decision-making process of commercial banks, the central bank and the government to frame policies to foster balanced growth and development in the housing market. The authors argue that striking a subtle balance between the concerns of financial stability and productive risk-taking by commercial banks in Malaysia remains a continuing challenge for the country’s central bank. The authors also argue that designing suitable taxation policies by the government can deliver its cherished goal of balanced development in the housing market. Originality/value Empirical research on the Malaysian housing market based on micro-level data is scarce due to a paucity of relevant data. This study is based on the individual borrower-level information of 43,156 housing loan borrowers from the files of a well-established housing bank in Malaysia. In this analysis, the authors find clear evidence of endogeneity in LTV and argue that any attempts to decipher the default drivers of housing loans without addressing the issue of endogeneity may lead to faulty interpretation. Therefore, this study is unique in recognizing endogeneity and has gone deeper in identifying the default drivers in the Malaysian housing market not addressed by earlier papers.

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 model to analyse 4.29 lakhs MSME loan account data originated by a large bank having a national presence from 1st January 2016 to 31st December 2020. Findings The estimated Kaplan–Meier survival function by various categories of loan and socio-demographic characteristics reflects heterogeneity and identifies the trigger points for actions. The authors identify the key identified default drivers. The authors find that the subsidy amount is more effective at the lower level and its effectiveness diminishes significantly beyond an optimum level. The simulated values show that the effects of rising interest rates on survival rates vary across industries and types of loans. Practical implications The identified points of inflection in the default dynamics would help banks to initiate actions to prevent loan defaults. The default drivers identified would foster more nuanced lending decisions. The study estimation of the survival rate based on the simulated values of interest rate and subsidy provides insight for policymakers. Originality/value This study is the first to investigate default drivers in MSME loans in India using micro-data. The study findings will act as signposts for the planners to guide the direction of the interest rate to be charged by banks in MSME loans, interest subvention and tailoring subsidy levels to foster sustainable growth.

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 decomposition analysis. This innovative approach allows us to decompose the price premium of number 8 obtained from the hedonic regression model into superstition and non-superstition components. The nonlinear decomposition analysis shows that approximately 37% to 45% of the estimated premium value which are associated with number 8 is attributed to superstition. This implies that the estimation of previous studies on superstitious value of number eight by using the hedonic regression model is subjected to an upward bias.

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 teachers. The objectives of the study are to examine the level of happiness of primary school teachers in Malaysia and its determinants. Ordered logit models are estimated using data from a random sample of 1,510 primary school teachers in Perlis, Kedah, and Penang. The descriptive statistics analysis reveals that, on average, the teachers are happy with their life but with a substantial variance. Aspiration is found to be an important determinant of happiness. Other determinants of happiness include religiosity (strength in religion, all religions teach morality in schools), the interaction between aspiration and religiosity, targeted life goals, achievement of life goals, and school environment. To increase the happiness of primary school teachers, the government needs to focus on the teachers’ aspiration, their life goals, religiosity, and the school environment. Thus, tangible and non-tangible rewards are needed to improve teacher happiness.

Political connections are often utilised by private enterprises to obtain easy financing in China. However, past research on the financial benefits from such utilisation has yielded inconsistent findings. This can be explained from the perspectives of non- linear effect and of optimal level of political connections, which have not yet been explored. This article aims to estimate the "optimal" level of political connections using the non-linear specifications on a sample of Chinese private-listed enterprises. Findings have shown that political connections reduce enterprises' financial constraints only to a certain extent and over-connecting politically could be dysfunctional. The Chinese approach in utilising political connections should aim to attain an optimal balance between maintaining a political relationship and building firms' capability. The findings provide further evidence that enriches the understanding of China's unique socialism with Chinese characteristics.

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 simulation indicates that MM could deliver a much stable and affordable platform for buyers as the financing is on a sharing basis because the risk will be shared between the financier and the buyer. The finding also demonstrates the possibility of changing to MM as both parties could benefit even if the buyer faces total default. This simulation highlights the possibilities of alternative home financing and promoting affordable homeownership.

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 individual borrower's data, as financial institutions generally hesitant to reveal their customers' data due to confidentiality issue. Design/methodology/approach This study uses logistic regression model to analyze 47,158 housing loan borrowers' data for the year 2016. Findings The findings suggest that male borrowers, Malay and other type of ethnicity, guarantor availability, loan original balance, loan tenure, loan interest rate and loan-to-value (LTV) ratio are the significant factors that influence mortgage loans default in Malaysia. Research limitations/implications Future studies may expand the sample by employing data from other types of financial institutions that would give greater insights as findings might vary due to differences in objectives, functions and regulations. In addition, the findings are subjected to the censoring bias where future studies could perform the survival analysis to control for censoring bias and re-validating the findings of the present study. Practical implications The findings provide valuable insights for lending institutions and the government to formulate housing loan policy in Malaysia. Originality/value To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study in the context of emerging economies that uses financial institution's internal data to investigate factors of mortgage loan default.

Entrepreneurship has been long regarded as able to lessen the problem of graduate unemployment. This ability of entrepreneurship has been frequently quoted by numerous studies as a motivation of study to engage into the studies of graduate entrepreneurial career choice. Nevertheless, the relationship between the entrepreneurial career choice and graduate unemployment is yet to be explored. This paper aims to estimate the impact of entrepreneurial career choice on the Malaysian graduate unemployment. The targeted population of the present paper was the Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) and Universiti Malaysia Kelantan (UMK) graduates. A sample of 1,723 graduates was collected using self-administered questionnaires. The descriptive statistics, cross-tabulation tables and econometrics analysis are employed. Graduate entrepreneurial career choice is found to be unrelated to the chance of being unemployed and unable to reduce the probability of being unemployed among the low employability graduates. Thus, graduate entrepreneurial career choice does not lessen the graduate unemployment problem. However, there is some evidence that entrepreneurial career choice could reduce the unemployment duration and hinder the occurrence of long-term unemployed among the low employability graduates. The Malaysian government policy to combat the graduate unemployment problem could not rely mainly on the entrepreneurial career choice. The graduate entrepreneurial career choice, however, could be relied on reducing the occurrence of long-term unemployment. Future studies are suggested to use the sample of all graduates to validate the findings.

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-demographic characteristics. We find house equity, loan, and borrower characteristics,and ability to pay are the key determinants. We also find that both double default and first default are higher at lower growth rates of house prices. Non-linearity and the inflection points in the profile of age, loan age, loan term, payment to income ratio, loan to value ratio, and loan interest rates vis-a-vis loan default status are significant findings. Tapering-off of default due to seasoning beyond a threshold year is notable. The study is the first of its kind, which uses granular data in its analysis, and hence the results would prove immensely beneficial in the policy formulations and managerial decisions.

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 attracting new students to come and study, pursuing the currently enrolled international students to stay on for advanced degrees is equally crucial to achieving the objective of the internationalisation agenda. Many studies have been done on factors affecting the decision of international students in choosing a host country. However, the retention and its sequential nature have been largely ignored. This paper aims to examine the probability of retention using a sequential approach. The descriptive statistics analysis found that Malaysia could expect that around 42% of its currently enrolled international students will remain in Malaysia. Results of the estimated sequential logit model reveal that university services are the significant factor that influences the probability of retention, whereas the education cost is found to be insignificant. Thus, consumption motives dominate the investment motives in terms of the probability of retention. Based on the findings, various policy implications are suggested to improve the retention rate of international students in Malaysia.

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 questionnaire survey, our proposed parity index suggests that private university graduates have higher salaries, while public university graduates have better skill gains. Nevertheless, after controlling for variables not captured in the index calculations, our empirical estimations show no strong evidence that type of university education drives salaries and gains in skills' value-added. Our paper fills the gap of empirical works that compare public-private university worth, particularly in the context of Malaysia and countries with a similar public-private university education system. Our findings behove policy-makers to de-emphasise the public-private university divide.

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 imperative to examine the drivers of future savings of Malaysian households. A sample of 1,106 bank customers in three cities of peninsular Malaysia was recruited, and the descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and Seemingly Unrelated Regressions (SUR) were employed. The results reveal that about 25 percent of households are not likely to make any changes in their savings profile in various financial and physical assets. The drivers of future saving are found to be socio-demographic parameters, such as age, education level, the number of working members in the household, and income, and other parameters, such as the percentage of income saved, and the period of the saving plan, which have a significant relationship with the change in future savings of the households. The policy implications of the findings are also presented.

Economic transformation is vital for a country. In addition to helping to boost the economy, economic restructuring also affects market workers especially in terms of unemployment. However, the unemployment rate in Malaysia at an average of 3 per cent annually reflects that the restructuring has not to affect labour. Therefore, this study aims to study the pattern of job flow due to economic transformation undertaken by the Malaysian government in 2010. Descriptive analysis shows that there exists job reallocation in the Malaysian manufacturing sector from 2005 to 2015, and it was dominated by the pattern of job creation rather than job destruction, for the whole manufacturing sector or at the technological level. Based on the results of this study, this paper proposes the Malaysian government and policymakers to consider other methods, as well as the unemployment rate to analyse the labour market performance. This study proposes the use of job flow method as one of the labour market indicators in the economy.

The role of foreign labour in advancing the economy of a country can not be denied. In addition to affecting wage levels, unemployment for local workers and productivity, foreign labour may also influence the firm's decision to create jobs. But the consequence is still faint. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the impact of foreign labour on the creation of jobs in the manufacturing sector in Malaysia. Panel data analysis using the GMM method finds that the increase in the number of foreign labour will encourage firms to create jobs. However, the jobs created can be assumed that low-skilled jobs are in line with the characteristics of foreign labour that come to Malaysia. This decision suggested that the government be more careful in giving permission for the use of foreign labour in the firm. This is to ensure that foreign workers contribute to the creation of highly skilled jobs in line with Malaysia's goal of becoming a developed nation.

This article examines to what extent income could influence subjective well-being based on a case study involving 249 working adult students from the School of Distance Education at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM).Subjective well-being is represented by the respondent's level of happiness and life satisfaction.The outcomes show happiness and life satisfaction are affected by household income, relative income, expected income and health.Household income seems to matter more in influencing both happiness and life satisfaction as compared to relative income.Respondents are less happy and less satisfied when the gap between their actual and expected income became larger.This study shows that better health status increases one's happiness and life satisfaction.Being divorced, separated or widowed compared to being single shows an adverse impact on their happiness but has no significant influence on their life satisfaction.Age and life satisfaction displayed an inverted U-shaped relationship indicating that life satisfaction among the respondents reaches its peak at age 44 and starts to decline after that.The Malays seemed to be more satisfied with their lives as compared with the other ethnic groups.