Tourism has emerged as a major industry worldwide and a sector in many countries. This sector has experienced a rapid growth and has become a key driver for sustainable socioeconomic developments globally. However, tourism is also a vector of environmental degradation through the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG). Therefore, the aim of this study was to analyze the main factors that are affecting the tourism demand in ASEAN-5 countries. Using a panel of five ASEAN countries over a 44-year period and applying the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) approach, the empirical results have shown that the major determinants of tourism demand in these countries are income, trade, tourism price, and carbon dioxide emission. The results have also shown that the PMG performed better than the Mean Group (MG) estimator. This paper refers to the PMG estimator because it constrains the long run coefficients to be identical, but allows the short run coefficients and error variances to differ across groups. Income and trade appeared to exert significant positive impacts on tourism demand, whereas tourism price and carbon dioxide emissions have negative impacts on tourism demand in these ASEAN-5 countries. The results would be a good reference for policy makers in these specific countries.

The rapid development of the manufacturing sector has been causing industrial effluents pollution. The practice of environmental regulation in the emerging economy focused on the externalities impact of industrialization. In conjunction with the issue, this study examines the effect of formal and informal regulation on the industrial effluent act and the firm compliance behavior in Malaysia. This quantitative study uses a survey questionnaire (structured) and involved 42 factories of three industries, namely food and beverages, textiles, and paper in Penang, Kedah, and Perlis. The data were analyzed using non-parametric tests: The Chi-Square, Mann-Whitney, and Spearman’s Rho. This study uses the firm behavior theory as the framework, and our non-parametric analyses showed that the traditional enforcement and fined probability could significantly affect compliance levels. We also find the market, consumer, competitor, and investor pressure positively influence firm compliance. The empirical results suggest effective enforcement of environmental regulation and the role of non-regulation must be empowered as a support mechanism for pollution control.

In the event of economic crises, it is observed that economic volatility becomes more severe. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the impact of greater openness and deeper financial sector development in influencing the level of economic volatility which could trigger economic crises in both long-and short-run periods in the case of ASEAN-5 countries, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Given that more attention is needed to address the issue, the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) estimations developed by Pesaran et al. (1999) and data ranging from 1980 to 2014 were employed to address the issue. With the ability to estimate short-run coefficients at each country level and its speed of adjustment, this study further fills the knowledge gap. Based on the analysis, it is found that greater trade and financial openness may further relax economic volatility in the long-run, suggesting greater international risk sharing which soothes consumption shocks. In terms of the effect of financial development towards economic volatility, it is found that only deeper banking sector development may reduce economic volatility in the long-run, but the same may not apply in the case of greater stock market development. Particularly, it is suggested that it is in the nature of developments in the banking sector to likely provide longer financing options and greater banker capabilities in detecting riskier investments, thus giving a favourable impact on economic volatility. It is a contrast with the stock market sector where it is more likely to be more susceptible towards large and sudden capital outflows. Its tendency to provide capital towards riskier investments may worsen volatility in the longer term. Nevertheless, in the short-run, the effects of greater openness and financial development is not as obvious as in the long-run; financial openness and greater stock market sector development may significantly relax economic volatility. As suggested by the speed of adjustment, the equilibrium from short-run to long-run is corrected by 1.71% and 2.33% in a year. Cumulatively, it can be said that there is no evidence that greater openness and deeper financial development may drag ASEAN-5 into another series of crises except in the case of stock market sector development. Therefore, the source of instability in the region is likely to be driven from greater stock market sector development rather than greater openness and banking sector development.

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This study was conducted to investigate further how Islamic Banking Performance may improve social welfare in Malaysia since the bank put one of its objectives to improve livelihood through its Shariah non-compliance fund. Reports highlighted that exceeding Shariah's non-compliance risk will cause force majeure to the bank and even the risk of bankruptcy. This study aims to discuss and clarify the risk of non-compliance with Sharia Law in the Islamic financial system. The data for this research is based on annual financial reports ranging from the year 2014 until 2019, consisting of 8 Islamic Financial Institutions (IFIs) in Malaysia, namely; Affin Bank, Alliance Bank, Ambank, Bank Islam, Hong Leong Bank, Maybank, OCBC Al-Amin bank and Public bank. Three-stage least square method incorporates the mediator variable in the simultaneous equation model. The result of this study pointed out that both variables significantly impact each of them. In short, the Shariah non-compliance funds can indeed affect the main factor of bank failure, capital adequacy ratio, but it has a positive effect on social welfare through GDP at the same time. Therefore, to balance the relationship between the two points, the government must formulate effective maintenance methods for Islamic Financial Institutions (IFIs) in Malaysia. Under the premise of improving social welfare, the IFIs can also safely maintain and operate.