Theory of rational expectations hypothesis: banks and other financial institutions in Malaysia

Chong, Lucy Lee-Yun and Puah, Chin-Hong and Md Isa, Abu Hassan (2012): Theory of rational expectations hypothesis: banks and other financial institutions in Malaysia.

Abstract

The Rational Expectations Hypothesis (REH) states that the actual outcome will be identical to the optimal forecast when all obtainable information had been utilized in forming the expectations. This study intends to empirically examine the existence of rational behavior in the banks and other financial institutions in Malaysia from the perspective of how the decision-makers formed their gross revenue (GR) and capital expenditure (CE) forecasts. Survey data provided by the Business Expectations Survey of Limited Companies was utilized to conduct a series of rationality tests including unbiasedness, non-serially correlated and efficiency tests. Empirical evidence shows that GR is unbiased, serially uncorrelated and efficient, nevertheless, CE fails to pass any of the tests. Therefore, GR is deemed as a rational predictor to the actual value but not in the case of CE.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Rational Expectations; Financial Sector; Gross Revenue; Capital Expenditure
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D84 - Expectations ; Speculations; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C1 - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General > C12 - Hypothesis Testing: General; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C2 - Single Equation Models ; Single Variables > C22 - Time-Series Models ; Dynamic Quantile Regressions ; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models ; Diffusion Processes; G - Financial Economics > G2 - Financial Institutions and Services > G20 - General

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