| Poverty
and Household Socioeconomic
Characteristics in Botswana : An Econometric Approach
--B
D Mmolawa and S M Kapunda
This
paper analyzes the socioeconomic characteristics of households in Botswana and
studies econometrically the relationship between income poverty and socioeconomic
variables—gender, age, educational status, employment of the household head,
number of dependants the household has, health status of the household head, and
the asset holding of the household. The study uses both, descriptive and multiple
regression analysis, employing the logit model to assess the impact of the chosen
variables. Econometrically, all variables selected have a significant impact on
the level of poverty and have the expected signs. The results show that households
having female heads are more in poverty and have other characteristics that aggravate
poverty—less education, large households and more dependents—are more
vulnerable to unemployment and have fewer assets. Finally, appropriate recommendations
are provided. ©
2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved.
Private
and Public Investment in Malaysia: Substitutability or
Complementarity?
-- Sallahuddin Hassan and Mohd Zaini
Abd Karim It
is generally accepted that the government plays a major role in promoting and/or
financing private capital formation. Policymakers and analysts believe that public
investment provides a significant stimulus to private investment, and thus serves
as an instrument in achieving a high economic growth rate. However, empirically,
there is a lack of consensus on whether public investment plays a role as complement
or substitute to private investment. Hence, the objective of this study is to
ascertain this evidence in the case of Malaysia. Using the error correction model
analysis, in the short-run, the results show that public investment does not affect
private investment. However, public investment has a positive effect on private
investment in the long-run indicating a complementary relationship between the
two. This result indicates that, public and private investment complement each
other. This might be the case where increase in public capital raises the marginal
productivity of private capital, resulting in a greater use of private capital.
The results support the Malaysian government policy of using government expenditures—where
most of the government expenditure is on infrastructure investment—as a tool
to increase aggregate demand since private investment respond positively to public
investment in the long-run. ©
2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved.
Business
Cycles Asymmetry: An Analysis of Developing Countries
-- Khong
Wye Leong Roy and Evan Lau Poh Hock
Asymmetry tests, which
were bifurcated into deepness and steepness tests, proposed by Sichel (1993) are
applied to the business cycles of 11 developing countries. These tests provide
evidence of statistically significant negative deepness and steepness only for
Malawi. Such asymmetry behaviors indicate that business cycles suffer a sharp
fall during recessions, and economic recoveries are slow and moderate. ©
2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved.
Enhanced
Trade Integration with Europe: New Prospects of Growth and Development for Libya?
-- Rolf
Bergs The
paper deals with the prospects of economic recovery and growth of Libya after
the suspension of the UN sanctions. Here, the risks and chances of Libya's participation
in the so-called `Barcelona Process' are viewed. Based on the results of a similar
study for Egypt and an empirical analysis of Libya's trade performance, the findings
suggest that the Libyan-EU trade is characterized on the one hand by a high gravity,
and on the other, by a strong dissimilarity, making economic integration difficult.
Free-trade, as a stand-alone measure, would not be necessarily conducive to Libya,
however, the secondary effects of free trade, fueled by enhanced incentive to
pursue courageous structural reforms could have important effects on the international
economic competitiveness of Libya, a dire need with a view to the limited crude
oil resources. ©
2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved.
Rating
Factors Identification using Claim Frequency Approach: The
Malaysian Experience
-- Noriszura Ismail and Abdul Aziz
Jemain This
paper identifies the rating factors of the Malaysian motor insurance experience
using the claim Frequency approach. In the recent years, the Poisson regression
has been widely used by the insurance practitioners for modeling claim frequency.
However, the Poisson regression assumes that the mean and variance of the dependent
variable is equal. In insurance practice, claim count or frequency data often
display over-dispersion or extra-Poisson variation—a situation where the
variance exceeds the mean. Inappropriate imposition of the Poisson may underestimate
the standard errors and overstate the significance of the regression parameters,
consequently misleading the inference for the rating factors. Therefore, the Negative
Binomial and Generalized Poisson regressions are suggested for handling over-dispersion
in the claim Frequency model. In this study, the Poisson, Negative Binomial and
Generalized Poisson regressions are considered for the claim frequency model to
identify the rating factors in two types of Malaysian motor insurance data—third
party property damage and own damage. ©
2007 IUP . All Rights Reserved. | 
