NUBS Malaysia academics present at ISI Regional Statistics Conference

L-R: Dr Chuen-Khee Pek, Dr Hsin-Vonn Seow, Dr Michael Yap, Dr Moe Chit Myint

NUBS Malaysia was represented by a team of four academics at the International Statistical Institute (ISI) Regional Statistics Conference held in Kuala Lumpur from 16-19 November 2014 at Sasana Kijang, Bank Negara Malaysia.  The conference was organised by the ISI South East Asia Regional Network in collaboration with Bank Negara Malaysia (Malaysian central bank), Department of Statistics, Malaysia, and the Malaysian Institute of Statistics.  

The team from NUBS Malaysia are Dr Michael Yap, Dr Hsin-Vonn Seow, Dr Moe Chit Myint and Dr Chuen-Khee Pek. Three papers were presented in an invited session, “Econometric and Statistical Methods for Economic and Business Decision-Making”. The session was organised and chaired by Dr Michael Yap who was also a member of the Scientific Programme Committee of the conference.

Dr Myint presented his paper entitled “Fractional Multi-response Logit Regression Estimation of SMEs’ Financing Decisions” which analyses how small and medium-sized enterprises make their financing decisions, and how an understanding of this is important for policymakers as SMEs often face challenges in gaining access to credit.

Dr Seow’s paper, “To Ask or Not To Ask, That is the Question”, uses novel statistical and mathematical methods to glean information from bank clients having their credit-worthiness evaluated. This enables the bank to better market their products by matching them with customer preferences and, hence, boost the take-up rate.

Dr Pek’s paper was entitled “Pricing Private and Public Goods and Services Through Valuation Methodologies and Econometrics”. It gives an overview of related quantitative techniques especially in pricing public goods. This is important due to the free-rider problem and enables suitable policies to be implemented on using depletable and renewable resources in a sustainable manner.