Investigating the Asymmetric Effect of Oil Price on the Economic Growth in Malaysia: Applying Augmented ARDL and Nonlinear ARDL Techniques

Abstract

This paper attempts to investigate if the effect of oil price on growth is asymmetrical for Malaysia, a small-open-dynamic oil-exporting country, over a period from 1981 to 2017. The empirical method employed in this study is the augmented autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) bound test approach and the recent innovative nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) model. Results suggest that neglecting nonlinearities can lead to misleading results. More precisely, the result reveals that adjustments in the price of oil influence Malaysia’s economic growth asymmetrically. An increase and decrease in the price of oil strengthen the economic growth of Malaysia, demonstrating Malaysia’s ability to be both an oil-producing country and a trading nation. These results strongly imply that Malaysia is able to take advantage of changes in the oil price efficiently.