DYNAMIC CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRADE BALANCE AND UNEMPLOYMENT SCENARIO IN MALAYSIA: GRANGER NON-CAUSALITY ANALYSIS

The Malaysian economy has gone through a process of profound changes for the past 30 years. From the global economics perspective, the decade started with inflation pressures, deep recession in the middle of 1980s and 1990s, and decline of trade balance and with high level of unemployment rate in 1980s. The aim of this paper is to trace out more about the asymmetrical integration between trade balance and unemployment dynamics for Malaysia using Granger non-causality test analysis. The major finding of this paper shows that increased in trade balance has a negative Granger non-causality effects on rigidity of unemployment dynamics for the case of Malaysia. This indicates that trade liberalization is also able to increase aggregate productivity in the differentiated sectors and able increase efficiency on economic performance will simultaneous increase in term of employment opportunities for skilled and unskilled labor in Malaysia. Trade balance can be also become an additional favorable effects of reducing Malaysia’s unemployment scenario in future.