Institutions and Economies https://ijie.um.edu.my/index.php/ijie <div align="justify"> <p>Institutions and Economies is a peer reviewed journal published by the Faculty of Business and Economics (formerly Faculty of Economics and Administration), University of Malaya. The journal is published four times a year, in January, April, July and October. The journal publishes research articles and book reviews. Only original articles that are not under consideration by other publishers are welcome. Special issues are also welcome but interested special issue editors must submit a proposal to the Editor-In-Chief for consideration. The journal is indexed in SCOPUS, IDEAS, MYCite, ECONPapers, ASEAN Citation Index (ACI), EBSCO and Asian Digital Library. Institutions and Economies is a recipient of the CREAM Award 2016 by the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia.</p> <p>Print ISSN: 2232 - 1640<br />E - ISSN: 2232 - 1349 </p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Peer Review Statement </strong></p> <p><strong><em>All research articles in the journal have undergone rigorous peer review. The process consists of an initial screening by the</em> <em>Editor-In-Chief, Deputy Editor and</em><em> Associate Editors, followed by double-blind refereeing: two reviewers for articles. Articles in special issues go through double-blind refereeing and one internal review by the Editorial Board. </em></strong></p> <p><strong><br />IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT</strong></p> <p>Beginning <strong>1st March 2021</strong>, <strong>there will be no submission fee for this journal. </strong> There will be a <strong>publication fee of USD100/- per article</strong> to partially cover the expenses of copy editing of accepted manuscripts. <strong>Payment of the publication fee should only be made after acceptance of a manuscript.</strong> The detailed information of the payment process can be seen <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CPooLEtB_tNkFSLKN7uhPxJIu6aHqd_1/view?usp=sharing">here</a>. Payment of the publication fee can be done at this <a href="https://epay.um.edu.my/">website</a>.</p> <p> </p> </div> <div class="SnapLinksContainer" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; display: none;"> <div class="SL_SelectionRect"> <div class="SL_SelectionLabel" style="right: 2px; bottom: 2px;">0 Links</div> </div> <!-- Used for easily cloning the properly namespaced rect --></div> <div class="SnapLinksContainer" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; display: none;"> <div class="SL_SelectionRect"> </div> <!-- Used for easily cloning the properly namespaced rect --></div> University of Malaya en-US Institutions and Economies 2232-1640 <p>Submission of a manuscript implies: that the work described is original, has not been published before (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture, review, or thesis); that is not under consideration for publication elsewhere; that its publication has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities at the institution where the work was carried out. 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Furthermore, the author may only post his/her version, provided acknowledgement is given to the original source of publication and a link must be accompanied by the following text: The original publication is available at www.ijie.um.edu.my.</p> <p>All articles published in this journal are protected by copyright, which covers the exclusive rights to reproduce and redistribute the article (e.g. as offprint), as well as all translation rights. No material published in this journal may be reproduced photographically or stored on microfilm, in electronic database, video disks, etc., without first obtaining written permission from the publishers. The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, etc., in this publication, even if not specifically identified, does not imply that these names are not protected by the relevant laws and regulations.</p> <p>The copyright owners consent does not include copying for general distribution, promotion, new works, or resale. In these cases, specific written permission must first be obtained from the publishers.</p> The Threshold Level of Economic Growth in BRI and Non-BRI Developing Countries for Better Environmental Quality https://ijie.um.edu.my/index.php/ijie/article/view/40823 <p>This&nbsp; study&nbsp; investigates&nbsp; the&nbsp; nexus&nbsp; between&nbsp; economic&nbsp; growth&nbsp; and&nbsp; carbon &nbsp;dioxide&nbsp; (CO2)&nbsp; emissions.&nbsp; Specifically,&nbsp; this&nbsp; study&nbsp; employs&nbsp; a&nbsp; dynamic&nbsp; panel&nbsp; threshold model&nbsp; to&nbsp; identify&nbsp; and&nbsp; compare&nbsp; the&nbsp; threshold&nbsp; levels&nbsp; of&nbsp; economic&nbsp; growth&nbsp; between developing countries participating and not participating in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).&nbsp; The&nbsp; findings&nbsp; signify&nbsp; a&nbsp; nonlinear&nbsp; relationship&nbsp; between&nbsp; the&nbsp; sampled&nbsp; countries’ economic growth and their CO2 emissions in both categories. Furthermore, the result of dynamic panel threshold model reveals that the threshold level of economic growth, in the category of BRI developing countries, was lower (US$ 887.49) as compared to non-BRI developing&nbsp; countries&nbsp; (US$&nbsp; 1358.57).&nbsp; This&nbsp; implies&nbsp; that &nbsp;the&nbsp; impact&nbsp; of&nbsp; economic&nbsp; growth in developing countries participating in the BRI was less harmful to the environment, and&nbsp; that&nbsp; these&nbsp; countries&nbsp; are&nbsp; more&nbsp; alert&nbsp; to&nbsp; environmental&nbsp; issues&nbsp; once&nbsp; the&nbsp; threshold&nbsp; of their gross domestic product per capita was achieved. Hence, Chinese authorities should put in more effort in facilitating sustainable infrastructure development to attract more developing countries to join the BRI to mitigate environmental degradation.</p> Yee-Qin Kon Mui-Yin Chin Sheue-Li Ong Copyright (c) 2023 2023-01-01 2023-01-01 1 25 10.22452/IJIE.vol15no1.1 Will Local Financial Development Affect the Competitive Advantage of Chinese Enterprises' Exports? https://ijie.um.edu.my/index.php/ijie/article/view/40940 <p>Many&nbsp; studies&nbsp; confirm&nbsp; the&nbsp; impact&nbsp; of&nbsp; financial&nbsp; development&nbsp; on&nbsp; the&nbsp; macro economy,&nbsp; but&nbsp; systematic&nbsp; studies&nbsp; of&nbsp; the&nbsp; impact&nbsp; of&nbsp; financial&nbsp; development&nbsp; on&nbsp; corporate exports&nbsp; is&nbsp; still&nbsp; lacking.&nbsp; Based&nbsp; on&nbsp; the&nbsp; quasi-natural&nbsp; experiment&nbsp; established&nbsp; by&nbsp; city commercial banks, this paper uses micro-data of Chinese industrial enterprises from 1998 to 2013 and adopts a double difference method to test the impact of the development of local financial institutions on corporate exports. The results show that the establishment of&nbsp; city&nbsp; commercial&nbsp; banks&nbsp; has&nbsp; significantly&nbsp; increased&nbsp; the&nbsp; export&nbsp; participation&nbsp; rate&nbsp; and total&nbsp; export&nbsp; volume&nbsp; of&nbsp; manufacturing&nbsp; enterprises&nbsp; in&nbsp; the&nbsp; city&nbsp; where&nbsp; they&nbsp; are&nbsp; located; comparatively&nbsp; speaking,&nbsp; its&nbsp; impact&nbsp; on&nbsp; the&nbsp; export&nbsp; expansion&nbsp; margin&nbsp; of&nbsp; industrial enterprises exceeds the intensive margin. At the same time, the study also found that the above-mentioned influences exist in both long-term and short-term, and in enterprises of different sizes and attributes. These findings provide new evidence for understanding the relationship between local financial development and corporate exports.</p> Luis Alfredo Ávila-López Mengxue Zhen Carolina Zayas-Márquez Copyright (c) 2023 2023-01-01 2023-01-01 27 44 10.22452/IJIE.vol15no1.2 Firm Ownership and Technical Efficiency: Production Frontier Analysis of Malaysian Manufacturing https://ijie.um.edu.my/index.php/ijie/article/view/40941 <p>Using a new micro-based dataset of 8,472 firms covering 19 industries, this paper employs a stochastic production frontier analysis to compare time-varying technical efficiencies of foreign firms vis-à-vis local firms for the 2014 to 2019 period. The empirical findings indicate that on average, foreign firms are only marginally more (technically) efficient&nbsp; than&nbsp; local&nbsp; firms&nbsp; even&nbsp; after&nbsp; controlling&nbsp; for&nbsp; other&nbsp; firm&nbsp; characteristics.&nbsp; The productivity levels between foreign firms and local firms are also somewhat comparable for ‘catalytic’ industries, electrical and electronics, machinery, and chemicals. Together these results confirm that the high productivity gaps between the foreign firms and local firms in the Malaysian manufacturing sector seem to be a thing of the past.</p> Sharmila Suntherasegarun Evelyn S. Devadason Copyright (c) 2023 2023-01-01 2023-01-01 45 74 10.22452/IJIE.vol15no1.3 Exploring Women's Retirement Literature through Bibliometric Analysis Using VOSviewer https://ijie.um.edu.my/index.php/ijie/article/view/40942 <p>This paper aims to analyse the issue of women’s retirement (WR) literature through &nbsp;bibliometric&nbsp; analysis&nbsp; using&nbsp; VOSviewer,&nbsp; a&nbsp; programme&nbsp; for&nbsp; the&nbsp; visualisation&nbsp; of &nbsp;similarities&nbsp; (VOS).&nbsp; Publications&nbsp; focusing&nbsp; on&nbsp; women’s&nbsp; retirement&nbsp; were&nbsp; compiled&nbsp; from &nbsp;the&nbsp; Scopus&nbsp; database,&nbsp; with&nbsp; a&nbsp; total&nbsp; of&nbsp; 393&nbsp; items&nbsp; spanning&nbsp; the&nbsp; years&nbsp; 1965&nbsp; to&nbsp; 2021.&nbsp; The &nbsp;most&nbsp; prolific&nbsp; nations&nbsp; for&nbsp; retirement&nbsp; literature&nbsp; are&nbsp; the&nbsp; United&nbsp; States,&nbsp; United&nbsp; Kingdom, and Sweden, which reflects the affiliation analysis that correlates highly with published papers&nbsp; within&nbsp; specific&nbsp; institutions&nbsp; in&nbsp; those&nbsp; three&nbsp; countries.&nbsp; The&nbsp; issues&nbsp; were&nbsp; discussed within&nbsp; the&nbsp; context&nbsp; of&nbsp; social&nbsp; sciences,&nbsp; economics,&nbsp; econometrics,&nbsp; and&nbsp; finance,&nbsp; as&nbsp; well&nbsp; as psychology. This suggests an interlinking of women’s retirement with social and financial issues that might contribute towards psychological challenges for women. The most cited keywords, among others, are ‘retirement’, ‘women’ and ‘pension’, with thematic clusters being linked to ‘ageing’ and ‘health’. These could be linked to health problems that emerge because of ageing, and thus might be linked to the retirement wellbeing of women. The findings of this paper shed light on several implications that can be used as a guideline for researchers and act as a foundation before embarking on the emerging knowledge areas of women’s retirement.</p> Mohamad N.E.A Zainuddin H.A. Rajadurai, J. Sapuan N.M. Copyright (c) 2023 2023-01-01 2023-01-01 75 98 10.22452/IJIE.vol15no1.4 Market Structure, Conduct, and Performance of Star Hotels in North Sumatra, Indonesia https://ijie.um.edu.my/index.php/ijie/article/view/40945 <p>This&nbsp; study&nbsp; aims&nbsp; to&nbsp; analyse&nbsp; the&nbsp; market&nbsp; structure,&nbsp; conduct,&nbsp; and&nbsp; performance &nbsp;of&nbsp; the&nbsp; star&nbsp; hotel&nbsp; industry&nbsp; in&nbsp; North&nbsp; Sumatra.&nbsp; The&nbsp; study&nbsp; was&nbsp; conducted&nbsp; in&nbsp; 2019&nbsp; with &nbsp;time series data for the period of 2013 to 2018. The market structure is measured using the methods of concentration ratio, Herfindahl-Hirschman index, and barriers to entry, while descriptive methods are used to analyse the conduct and performance of five-star hotels. The results of the study show that: (i) there is a concentration of three- and four-star hotels, and that the concentration of four- and five-star hotels have an oligopolistic structure; (ii) the market structure of star hotels tends to be monopolistic; (iii) the minimum efficient scale index of star hotels is relatively small, which means that new hotels have a good opportunity to get a larger market share; (iv) the level of service and the level of availability of star hotel facilities are classified as good; and (v) the star hotel market structure influences hotel business behaviour in North Sumatra, which in turn affects hotel business performance.</p> Tongam Sihol Nababan Raya Panjaitan Ferry Panjaitan Robert Tua Siregar Acai Sudirman Copyright (c) 2023 2023-01-01 2023-01-01 99 130 10.22452/IJIE.vol15no1.5 COVID-19 and the Structural Crises of Our Time https://ijie.um.edu.my/index.php/ijie/article/view/40946 Rajah Rasiah Copyright (c) 2023 2023-01-01 2023-01-01 131 133 Ethnic Dissent and Empowerment - Economic Migration between Vietnam and Malaysia https://ijie.um.edu.my/index.php/ijie/article/view/42177 Evelyn S. Devadason Copyright (c) 2023 2023-02-24 2023-02-24 135 136