Examining the Role of Fiscal Policy in Malaysian Stock Market

Abstract

This paper analyzes the relationship between stock index and macroeconomic policies (fiscal and monetary) using quarterly data for Malaysia for 1999:Q1–2011:Q4. The change in stock index was used as a proxy for financial performance. The co-integration test utilizes to detect the existence of long run relationship between stock index and macroeconomic variables and develops a vector error correction model (VECM) to test the existence of short run relationship (elasticities) among the variables. The findings indicate that there exists long run relationship among stock index, fiscal and monetary tools. This indicates that fiscal and monetary tools play an important role in accelerating financial performance in Malaysia. However, monetary tools can work faster than fiscal tools. This result would give a signal to investors to strategize their investment decision in the short and long run.