PANDEMIC SHOCKS AND MACRO-FINANCIAL POLICY RESPONSES: AN ESTIMATED DSGE-VAR MODEL FOR INDONESIA

This paper attempts to investigate the impact of policy mix in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. We employ the New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) framework and the Del Negro et al. (2007) approach to estimate the model. We investigate the effectiveness of policy mix in Indonesia by taking into account real and financial linkages, as well as other market imperfections. We intend to analyze and evaluate the adequacy of monetary, fiscal, and macroprudential policy by simulating each policy option using Indonesian-specific factors and comparing them. Our findings show that policy mix has a greater impact on accelerating economic recovery but does not necessarily lead to anchor inflation. © 2022 The authors.

INDONESIA'S FINANCIAL STRESS EVENTS AND MACROECONOMIC DYNAMICS

In this study, we use a Markov-Switching Bayesian Vector AutoRegression model to investigate the episodic relationship between financial stress and the key macroeconomic variables in the case of Indonesia. We find different nature of relationships among Indonesia's real sector variables (household consumption expenditure and consumer price index), financial sector variables (interbank money market rate) and the policy variable (broad money supply during the times of high and low financial stress). Regime changes occurred on several occasions, including during the 2008 global financial crisis period and at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2022 Authors. All rights reserved.

FRAMEWORK OF MEASURES FOR COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN MALAYSIA: THREATS, INITIATIVES AND OPPORTUNITIES

Globally, COVID-19 has infected over millions of people worldwide. The first COVID-19 case in Malaysia was imported from Singapore on 24th January 2020. Since then, many more local cases had been reported with the basic reproduction value reaching 3.5. The government has thus implemented the Movement Control Order (MCO) from 18th March to 12th May, and Conditional MCO from 13th May to 9th June, as preventive measures to lower the R-nought (Ro) value to about 1. In hindsight, this pandemic has exposed our limitations, unpreparedness and imprudent resource allocations in coping with the consequences, besides posing a monumental challenge to recovery. This article describes the COVID-19 scenario in Malaysia and explores its preemptive framework for socio-economic mitigation measures to maintain economic health and recovery, as well as strengthening the nation’s healthcare system. Several opportunities (research grants for COVID-19 and the Internet of Things) and issues (prediction of COVID-19 cases without MCO and global superpower shifts) that emerged due to the crisis that may directly or indirectly affect the country are also highlighted. © 2022

LOSS OF EMPLOYMENT, LOCKDOWN MEASURES AND GOVERNMENT RESPONSES IN MALAYSIA DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: A NOTE

In this paper, we use daily administrative data from January 25, 2020 to December 31, 2020 to examine the relationship between job losses and the Malaysian lockdown measures. The Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach is used to estimate both the long-run and short-run models. The results of the Bounds F-test for cointegration reveal that there is a long-run link between job losses and the Malaysian government lockdown measures (both linear and non-linear). The positive association between job loss and lockdown measures shows that as the lockdown gets tighter, more people will lose their jobs. However, as time passes, especially in conjunction with the government stimulus package programmes, job losses decrease.

Labour market reactions to lockdown measures during the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia: An empirical note

In this empirical note, we examine the relationship between the loss of employment and lockdown measures undertaken by the Malaysian government during the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak over the period from 25 January 2020 to 10 September 2020. By using cointegration analysis, our results suggest that there are both long-run and short-run relationships between loss of employment and lockdown measures in Malaysia. Lockdown measures show positive impact on the number of workers who lost their jobs during the pandemic. The loss of employment increases by 0.35% to 1.1% for every 1% increase in the lockdown measures. © 2021 Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. All rights reserved.

EFFECTIVENESS OF ANTIBODY VS ANTIGEN BASED DETECTION METHOD AND THE SCREENING APPROACHES TO COMBAT COVID-19

The spreading of novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus (COVID-19) had infected 41,570,883 people worldwide, with infection cases in Malaysia reaching 24,514 cases on 23rd October 2020. COVID-19 has been associated with severe lower respiratory tract infections, acute respiratory distress syndrome, and death. In response to this global emergency situation, clinical research and interventions in treating COVID-19 are emerging at an unprecedented rate. Currently, there are two types of test that were used to detect the presence of COVID-19: antigen-based and antibody-based detection tests, each with specific advantages and disadvantages which is the focus of this article. In addition, issue on whether rapid mass screening is better compared to the targeted screening to halt COVID-19 infection is also discussed. We conclude that antigen-based detection kit using Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) has high specificity and sensitivity compared to other methods. In a country with lack resources, manpower and facilities, targeted screening can be opted as this method is equally effective to contain COVID-19 spreading when compared with rapid mass screening. © 2020, Journal of Sustainability Science and Management. All rights reserved