This study analyzes how the off-balance sheet activities of the locally-owned commercial banks affect the banks' performance in terms of banks' exposure to various types of risks, bank's profit, and the banks' leverage. A panel data econometric regression has been done to achieve the objective. The results indicate that the relationship between the off-balance sheet activities and interest rate risk, unsystematic risk, and overall risk of the banks is insignificant. Nevertheless, the results indicate that market risk is significantly influenced by the off-balance sheet activities. In terms of banks' performance, it is found that the stock return is negatively related to off-balance sheet activities. Moreover, there is no significant relationship between off-balance sheet activities and return on equity, leverage, and liquidity ratio.
The article discusses the country of Malaysia's economic growth in the year 2007 because of domestic demand and public investments. The 2008 gross domestic product projections are examined with risks taken into account such as a U.S. recession, unpredictable financial markets and higher oil and food prices. The Malaysian government's investment in the Iskandar Development Region in South Johor and the Northern Corridor Economic Region in the northern Peninsular Malaysia are discussed.
This study compares three methodologies for identifying financially distressed companies, multiple discriminant analysis (MDA), logistic regression and hazard model. In a sample of 52 distressed and non-distressed companies with a holdout sample of 20 companies, the predictions of the hazard model were accurate in 94.9 % of the cases examined. This was a higher accuracy rate than generated by the other two methodologies. However, when the holdout sample is included in the sample analyzed, MDA had the highest accuracy rate at 85%. Among the ten determinants of corporate performance examined, the ratio of debt to total assets was a significant predictor of corporate distress regardless of the methodology used. In addition, net income growth was another significant predictor in MDA, whereas the return on assets was an important predictor when the logistic regression and hazard model methodologies were used.
The paper examines Malaysian taxpayers' perceptions of their current tax practitioner as well as the attributes of the ideal tax practitioners that they are looking for. The study shows that gender, age and education level are significantly correlated with the attributes of their ideal tax practitioners. Majority of females, in the age group over 31 years and with higher education level, tend to have high priority for 'low risk with no fuss' as compared to males, with lower education level and age group below 31 years who display priority for 'creative accounting, aggressive tax planning'. Besides, the most welcome kind of tax practitioner is one with 'low risk with no fuss' and whom taxpayers categorize as an honest person. This is followed by 'creative accounting, aggressive tax planning', where taxpayers seek for a tax practitioner who is familiar with the grey area, clever in tax minimizing and aware of the major areas that Inland Revenue Board (IRB) check on. The last is the 'cautions minimization of tax', which is the least popular.
