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on South East Asia |
| By: | Mansur, Kasim; Jubok, Zainudin |
| Abstract: | In this era of globalisation, most university curriculum requires new sets of settings and arrangements. Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) is no exception. Multi-disciplinary, academic degree-granting programme in UMS have been designed for students and faculties as the basis in ensuring a harmonious existence within and outside the campus. Most of the curriculum in UMS is designed to promote the understanding of universal values and traditions consistent with the quest for global peace and human solidarity. UMS not only provides knowledge, practical experience and skills for scholars and practitioners involved in conflict resolution but also play its role as a peace builder; giving humanitarian and economic assistance. To bring about peace and harmony amongst students of diverse religious and cultural backgrounds, UMS has two components: one is the orientation-training programme for all the new students and the other is the year–round practical training, character building and curriculum development programmes. This paper examines how the forces of globalisation have transformed its curriculum and raised new challenges to our existing institutions in promoting peace and intercultural harmony among students and staff alike. |
| Keywords: | Curriculum; Harmony; University; Peace; Malaysia |
| JEL: | I20 |
| Date: | 2009–02–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:13433&r=sea |
| By: | Mansur, Kasim; Abd. Rahim, Dayangku Aslinah; Lim, Beatrice; Mahmud, Roslinah |
| Abstract: | Malaysian women have continued to play an increasingly important role in the national development of the country including greater participation in the economy and labor market. These improvements were made possible by the increasing numbers of females having access to education. Education provides better work opportunities and thus increases the level of income of an individual. Therefore education is perceived to be an important factor in human capital formation. In Islam, every Muslim is required to acquire knowledge as much as possible. Knowledge generates wealth. Thus, Islam condemns idleness, inactivity and poverty are condemned. A Muslim should be actively involved in the pursuit of increasing their knowledge and skill to ensure that their life is not of mere subsistence. This paper will look at the perception towards the importance of education among Muslim women. A total of 189 respondents were interviewed from selected kampongs in the district of Papar, Sabah. The data collected was analyzed and reported using descriptive statistics. About 42.4 percent respondents have obtained a diploma and degree level education. From the study, it is found that 78 percent of the total respondents perceived that education is very important. A total of 47.1 percent strongly agreed that education can influence future income. Essentially, a total of 78.8 per cent agreed that higher level of education leads to a higher level of income. |
| Keywords: | Women; Education |
| JEL: | I20 J20 |
| Date: | 2009–02–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:13430&r=sea |
| By: | Jung-Wook Kim; Jason Lee; Randall Morck |
| Abstract: | Using complete order books from the Korea Stock Exchange for a four-year period including the 1997 Asian financial crisis, we observe (not estimate) limit order demand and supply curves for individual stocks. Both curves have demonstrably finite elasticities. These fall markedly, by about 40%, with the crisis and remain depressed long after other economic and financial variables revert to pre-crisis norms. Superimposed upon this common long-term modulation, individual stocks’ supply and demand elasticities correlate negatively at high frequencies. That is, when a stock exhibits an unusually elastic demand curve, it tends simultaneously to exhibit an unusually inelastic supply curve, and vice versa. These findings have potential implications for modeling how information flows into and through stock markets, how limit order providers react or interact to information flows, how new information is capitalized into stock prices, and how financial crises alter these processes. We advance speculative hypotheses, and invite further theoretical and empirical work to explain these findings and their implications. |
| JEL: | G10 G14 |
| Date: | 2009–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14733&r=sea |
| By: | Mansur, Kasim; Kasim, Mohd. Yusof; Ahmad, Abd. Razak |
| Abstract: | As strategic education agenda works to prepare competent graduates, human resource development has become crucial for uplifting the internal strength of the university. University Malaysia Sabah (UMS) relatively a ‘young’ university has been engaged in establishing learning interaction among its staffs towards excellence. This paradigm is paramount to the strategic human resource provider as it allows not only the students who will be graduating but the young faculty members and its administrative staffs to excel. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the keys to successful university undertaken by UMS. In less than ten years, the faculty members as well as the administrative staffs manage to position the university at par to that of other established higher learning institutions in the nation. With the establishment of learning interaction, human resource development of UMS have shown some impact for promoting educational excellence among Malaysians. Indeed competent human resource plays an important role to meet the vision and the mission of UMS- strive to excel. |
| Keywords: | Human Resource Development; Higher Education |
| JEL: | I20 O15 |
| Date: | 2009–02–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:13431&r=sea |
| By: | Wang, Daxue (IESE Business School) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses the cross-sectional variance of the betas to study herd behavior towards the market index in major developed and emerging financial markets (categorized as Developed group, Asian group, and Latin American group). We propose a robust regression technique to calculate the betas of the CAPM and those of the Fama-French three-factor model, with to the aim of diminishing the impact of multivariate outliers in return data. Through the estimated values obtained from a state space model, we examine the evolution of herding measures, especially their pattern around sudden events such as the 1997-1998 financial crises. This 1997-1998 turmoil turns out to have formed a turning point for most of the financial markets. We document a higher level of herding in emerging markets than in developed markets. We also find that the correlation of herding is higher between two markets from the same group than between two markets from different groups. This paper sheds light on the calculation of beta and on the financial policy to understand the dynamics of herding in financial markets. |
| Keywords: | Herding; Outlier; Robust Regression; Cycle; |
| JEL: | C60 G12 G14 G15 |
| Date: | 2008–12–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ebg:iesewp:d-0776&r=sea |
| By: | Enriqueta Camps |
| Abstract: | In this paper we present: 1. the available data on gender inequality at the macroeconomic and comparative level and 2. Gender inequality measures at the microeconomic and case study level. We see that market openness has a very significant effect on the diminution of the human capital gender gap. Globalization and market openness is a fist factor that improves the human capital endowments of women and also their economic position. But we also see that the effects of religious beliefs are more hybrids. While Catholicism has an statistically significant influence on the improvement of the human capital gender gap, Muslim and Buddhist religions have the opposite negative effect of increasing gender differences. In the second global era Catholic Latin American countries benefited from market openness in terms of the human capital gender gap, while we find the opposite impact in Buddhist and Muslim countries like China, were the position of women even worsened. |
| Keywords: | Wage inequality, gender gap, market openness, human capital |
| JEL: | J22 J13 J16 |
| Date: | 2009–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upf:upfgen:1145&r=sea |
| By: | United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF |
| Abstract: | The State of the World’s Children 2009 focuses on maternal and neonatal health and identifies the interventions and actions that must be scaled up to save lives. |
| Keywords: | Asia, children, mother, India, Srilanka, maternal, neonatal, newborn care, Africa, health, communities, death, Nigeria |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:1860&r=sea |
| By: | Gabriella Berloffa; Francesca Modena |
| Abstract: | Using the Indonesian Family Life Survey, this study investigates whether Indonesian farmers respond differently to income shocks (crop loss) depending on the level of their asset ownership, and whether their responses are aimed at preserving consumption levels or at accumulating assets. We consider a framework in which assets contribute directly to the income generation process. In this context the need to accumulate assets to ensure future income may lead poor farmers (those with a low level of productive assets) to behave quite differently in terms of both their responses to shocks and their consumption decisions. For them transitory shocks may have long term consequences when the income loss leads to changes in their asset investment decisions. Our results suggest that while non-poor farmers smooth consumption relative to income, poor households use labor supply to compensate the income loss and, on average, they save half of this extra income. These results confirm the importance of savings for poor households, and highlight a crucial role for policies that support savings or, more precisely, the accumulation of productive assets. |
| Keywords: | income shocks, consumption smoothing, asset smoothing |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:trn:utwpde:0901&r=sea |