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The purpose of this study is to examine real exchange rate misalignment and economic growth in Malaysia.

The result of the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach and the generalized forecast error variance decomposition.

The result of the ARDL approach shows an increase in the real interest rate differential, productivity differential, the real oil price or reserve differential will lead to an appreciation of the real exchange rate in the long run. The result of the generalized forecast error variance decomposition shows that the real interest rate differential, productivity differential, the real oil price, and reserve differential are generally important to the real exchange rate determination. Moreover, the result of the ARDL approach shows that an increase in real exchange rate misalignment will lead to a decrease in economic growth. More specifically, devaluation will promote economic growth and appreciation will hurt economic growth. Exchange rate can be a policy variable to influence economic growth. Real exchange rate misalignment should be avoided to enable the allocation of resources in the economy according to fundamentals.

A managed floating exchange rate regime could be a choice of exchange rate regime in other developing countries to achieve rapid economic growth.

The purpose of the paper is to examine the impact of exchange rate misalignment on economic growth in India using annual data from 1980 to 2014.

First, misalignment is measured, which is defined as the deviations of the actual real exchange rate (RER) from its equilibrium level. The equilibrium real exchange rate (ERER) is estimated using the auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL) model by considering key macroeconomic fundamentals of the determinants of RER. Zivot and Andrews’ unit root with structural break is used to test the stationarity property of data. The impact of exchange rate misalignment on economic growth has been examined using ARDL and variance decomposition techniques.

Our results find an overvaluation of the exchange rate till 2000, and thereafter, an undervaluation of the exchange rate prevails in India. Further, the result indicates that an increase in exchange rate misalignment leads to a decrease in economic growth and vice versa. Moreover, a positive misalignment (overvaluation) hurts the economic growth and a negative misalignment (undervaluation) promotes the economic growth.

From the policy perspective, the results highlight that India needs to maintain an appropriate exchange rate which can reduce the RER misalignment. It is better for the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s intervention to smoothen the fluctuations of the exchange rate to avoid the inefficiency in the allocation of resources. However, to minimize the RER misalignment, the intervention should be conducted only in the short run.

The study contributes to the existing literature by estimating the exchange rate misalignment for India and its impact on economic growth.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of real exchange rate misalignment on economy and economic sectors, namely construction, manufacturing and mining and quarrying in Malaysia.

The equilibrium real exchange rate and economic models are estimated using the autoregressive distributed lag approach.

An increase in productivity differential or reserve differential will lead to an appreciation of real exchange rate in the long run. An increase in positive (negative) real exchange rate misalignment will lead to an increase (decrease) in economy. An increase in long-run real exchange rate misalignment will lead to a decrease in economy. Real exchange rate misalignment or long-run real exchange rate misalignment can influence the manufacturing sector in Malaysia. More specifically, undervaluation will promote whereas overvaluation will hurt the manufacturing sector.

Real exchange rate misalignment can be a policy to influence economy but may not be the best choice.

Regional rates of return in the United States differed widely following the Civil War and some differences persisted until well after World War II. Our understanding of the evolution of short-term interest rates is based primarily on portfolio rates of return estimated from bank accounting data. This paper uses new national bank loan rate series for 1887–1975 to present a revised view of the evolution of regional short-term interest rates. Two findings are of particular interest. The organization of the Federal Reserve System was accompanied by significant convergence in regional bank loan rates. Rates in the postbellum South were lower than previously thought.

The purpose of this paper is to enhance our understanding of effects of International Clearing Unions on the exchange market pressure (EMP). Using Asian Clearing Union (ACU) as an example of a typical International Clearing Union, the authors infers that ACU has not been very successful in synchronizing the EMP in the region. Other countries that are not members of such clearing union but are interested in monetary cooperation with other countries should consider the behavior of their EMP indices before attempting any form of integration. The study also provides a generic methodology for using EMP as an indicator for predicting the feasibility of monetary cooperation across countries.

An EMP model using the median absolute deviation is derived to reflect the policy preferences of each country. The weights for change in foreign reserves and interest rate differential are derived using analytical models. The index is then applied to ACU as a case study using monthly data from 2006 to 2015 for Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Iran. The descriptive statistics are studied to find the possibility of short-run relationship between the exchange rates, foreign exchange reserves and interest rate differential. The longitudinal data set generated is checked for cointegration to evaluate the EMPs of the countries.

The study finds that the EMP of ACU members’ shows similarity only in short-term movement but have no cointegration of EMP indices indicating the absence of long-term relationship. The absence of long-term cointegration of EMP for ACU members also indicates that ICU membership may not necessarily lead to similarity in exchange rate policies that facilitate the formation of a currency union. Creation of an ICU is not a sufficient condition for the formation of a currency union. The study also finds that the sample countries have faced persistent depreciation pressures in the period. The preferred tool for the management of EMP is direct intervention by sale and purchase of foreign currency. Interest rate changes are found to have the most significant effect on EMP.

The EMP model limits itself only to the study of exchange rates, foreign reserves and interest rates. Exchange rate variation and policy responses there to are known to be driven by other factors such as speculation, political factors, autonomous capital flows and micro-level dynamics of exchange markets like order flows among others. The EMP model is a simplification of the market dynamics and does not look for associations on the account of these factors. The model is evaluated for only one ICU where member countries regulate exchange rates. The study of ICUs that comprises free float currencies and pegged currencies may yield different results.

Results indicate that the member of any ICU such as ACU cannot assume that its participation will serve as a foundation for creating higher forms of economic unions such as currency unions. In the absence of any long-term relationship between the EMP of countries, any attempt by these countries may cause the exchange rates to deviate further. This leads to the conclusion that the members of ACU should avoid any attempts to form currency unions or use a common currency for its settlement.

Various countries that are considering the formation of currency union or the use of a common currency peg may like to examine its feasibility using EMP as a tool. Using EMP, they may be able to derive short-term and long-term strategies for pursuing their objectives.

There are few other studies that use EMP as an index for measuring the feasibility of formation of a currency union among countries that are the member of an ICU. While earlier studies apply EMP to a group of countries, none attempt to modify the index to reflect the EMP that is likely to affect central bank policy action. Few studies have attempted to use EMP to study the feasibility of formation of a currency union in South Asia based on exchange rate markets itself.

This paper attempts to analysis the credit risk at the angle of industrial and macroeconomic factor using grey incidence analysis method.

Credit asset quality problem is one of the obstacles limiting the further development of commercial banks; the research on credit risk becomes an important part of the implementation of a commercial bank's risk management. Different industries may have different effects on the credit risk of commercial bank. This paper proposes finding out the different incidences between industries and credit risk, as well as macroeconomics. Incidence identification method is established to investigate whether the industry and macroeconomic factor could affect an impaired loan ratio of a bank using the grey incidence analysis method.

The results indicate that the impaired loan ratio differs with diverse industry's influence and the macroeconomics also affect it. From the angle of the industry, the result can also determine the risk deviation scope in the grey risk control process which offers new content and ideas within the grey risk control.

Under the guidance of the principle of “differential treatment, differential control”, this research will help to strengthen the implementation of differentiated credit policy, focus on guiding and promoting the optimization of credit structure, so as to maintain a reasonable size of credit facilities and build a steady currency credit system.

The paper succeeds in finding the top five influent industries compared with others by using one of the newest developed theories: grey systems theory.

The purpose of this paper is to explain prevalent earnings differentials in Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC’s) private sectors between skilled local and migrant labor and provide estimates of potential price distortions to underlie future market-based corrective policies that increase participation of locals in private employment.

The paper uses an individual-level data set on workers’ earnings and productivity-related characteristics to decompose estimated earnings differentials at the mean level and at various percentiles of the earnings distribution via well-established decomposition approaches.

Results show that the real earnings differential between locals and Asians decreases at higher earnings, while that between locals and non-GCC Arabs are relatively stable. Both are characterized by overpayment of locals, that is, self-inflicted by current nationalization policies. Higher earnings of Westerners are due to their superior productivity-related characteristics.

Due to the lack of official individual-level data on workers’ productivity-related characteristics, this paper is compelled to utilize an open-source primary data set. Despite the data set’s ability to reproduce officially published aggregates and produce sound econometric results, findings are not entirely proof against sampling bias.

The paper demonstrates that the failure of GCC’s nationalization policies is self-inflicted by the current quota system and by the lack of legislative frameworks that ensure equal pay for equal work. Effective nationalization ought to be market based, rather than by fiat.

The paper is the first to analyze GCC’s private earnings differentials at the individual level and provides micro-econometric evidence on existing price distortions.

Recent findings show that racism, as defined by biased attitudes toward blacks or members of other minority groups, has declined, at least in the USA. Concomitantly, school achievement differentials by race are less likely to be attributed to genetically inherited capabilities. Yet, despite this decline in racist attitudes, protests against racism have reached unprecedented levels. The reason for this paradox is that while racist attitudes have diminished, income and social inequality have not, and, indeed, have actually increased. Consequently, underlying racial grievances are aimed at inequality far more than racism. The key to understanding this paradox of rising inequality in the face of declining racism lies in the fact that inequality is structural, ingrained in social and economic institutions, schools in particular. In most countries, schools give wealthier children an unfair advantage, thus exacerbating inequalities rather than providing an equal opportunity to succeed on the basis of merit alone. Several countries have addressed this dilemma by providing tuition vouchers and scholarships to poorer students, allowing parents greater resources with which to choose better schools for their children. This policy of expanding school choice generally seems to be effective in addressing racial disparities.

In 1969, the annual per capita income of Singapore was $650. By 1981, Singapore's gross national product per capita was $5,240. Such productivity placed this small developing state among the very wealthiest non‐OPEC developing countries of the world, with an unequalled 1960–82 average annual growth rate of 7.4 per cent. During the decade to 1982, real per capita GNP grew by an average of 9.2 per cent each year. In 1982, gross domestic product amounted to $14 billion. In 1983, Singaporean real GNP grew by 7.2 per cent, a performance matched only by Hong Kong and Taiwan. Unemployment was held to a level of 2.3 per cent and inflation to an even more modest 1.1 per cent. Singapore also achieved the highest national savings rate in the world, at 42 per cent of GDP. These trends produced a 1985 GNP per capita of $7,420, larger than those of Italy, Ireland, Spain, Greece, Portugal and New Zealand; and not much less than those of either Belgium or Britain (World Bank, 1987, p. 203). If the nation's GDP contracted by 1.9 per cent in 1985, it resumed expansion thereafter, at an inflation‐adjusted rate of 1.8 per cent in 1986, and 8.6 per cent in 1987 (Wall Street Journal, 1988, p. 12).