This paper investigates the long run Granger causality between defense spending and economic growth for 20 selected Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) by employing the Error-Correction Model (ECM) framework using annual data for the period 1960 to 2005. defense spending (milex) is measured using the ratio of defense spending to gross domestic product (GDP); while economic growth (rgdpc) is proxy by the real GDP per capita. The results of our study indicated that one way long run Granger causality was found running from economic growth to defense spending for Burkina Faso, Indonesia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Togo and Turkey. On the other hand, one way long run Granger causality was found running from defense spending to economic growth was found for Iran, Mauritania and Nigeria. However for the rest of the OIC countries, the results suggested no relationship between defense spending and economic growth.

This paper investigates the long run Granger causality between defense spending and economic growth for 20 selected Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) by employing the Error-Correction Model (ECM) framework using annual data for the period 1960 to 2005. defense spending (milex) is measured using the ratio of defense spending to gross domestic product (GDP); while economic growth (rgdpc) is proxy by the real GDP per capita. The results of our study indicated that one way long run Granger causality was found running from economic growth to defense spending for Burkina Faso, Indonesia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Togo and Turkey. On the other hand, one way long run Granger causality was found running from defense spending to economic growth was found for Iran, Mauritania and Nigeria. However for the rest of the OIC countries, the results suggested no relationship between defense spending and economic growth

In the last four decades, the financial services sector has becoming more important for the Malaysian economy. Despite gaining importance for enhancing economic growth, the contribution of the finance sector to the total services real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been ranked second in Peninsular Malaysia, third in Sabah and fourth in Sarawak. The purpose of the present paper is to determine whether the contribution of the financial services sector in the three regions in Malaysia, namely Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak show any distinct pattern. In the jargon of economic development literature, we seek to determine whether there is “convergence” or similarity in the patterns of the performance of the financial services sector among the three regions. Generally, our results suggest divergence of the finance sector and other sub-sector of the services among the three regions.

This paper examines the causality between military expenditures and economic growth for twenty selecteddeveloping countries. In this paper we test for Granger long-run causality employing the Panel Error-Correction Model (ECM) framework using annual data for the period 1970 to 2005. Military expenditure is measured using the logarithm of the ratio of military expenditures to gross domestic product (milex); while economic growth is proxied by the logarithm of real GDP per capita (rgdppc). Causation (as well as cointegration) is inferred from milex to rgdppc, in a panel setting using the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) estimator proposed by Pesaran et al. (1999) when the Error-Correction (ECM) term is significant in an equation with rgdppc as dependent variable. On the other hand, Granger causality is said to run from rgdppc to milex, when the ECM term is significant in an equation with milex as dependent variable. However, before testing for cointegration or causality, the order of integration of both time-series in a panel setting was tested using the three standard panel unit root tests (Levin et al., 2002; Im et al., 1997; Maddala and Wu, 1999). Our PMG results suggest that the ECM term is significantly different from zero in a model when milex is the dependent variable but not otherwise. The result implies that there is cointegration between military expenditures and economic growth, on average, for all the selected developing countries.

Almost five decades, disparity in income across states in Malaysia continues to be a matter of concern. The existence of regional inequalities and the prospects that these inequalities may widen were recognized by the Malaysian government. The nine volumes of the 5-Year Malaysia Plans reflects the sincerity of the Malaysian government in eradicating if not elevating the problem of regional or states imbalances. The objective of the present study is to investigate stochastic convergence among three regions (Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak) in Malaysia using sectoral data. Using annual data for the period 1968 to 2003 we found that Malaysia's sectoral data exhibit strong and weak convergence between regions.

This study was conducted to explore the varying volatility of world rice price for the period 1961 to 2008 using monthly data. The paper provides estimates of two GARCH models, namely, GARCH and EGARCH which were used to capture the stochastic variation and asymmetries in the world rice price. The results indicate that EGARCH model gives better estimate of the volatility of world rice price. Furthermore the EGARCH model was able to describe the asymmetric volatility in the world price of rice. It was further discovered that the positive shocks (good news) is more dominant than the negative shock (bad news).