Does monetary policy affect economic growth: evidence from Malaysia

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between monetary policy and economic growth in the light of a developing economy, with the main focus on Malaysia. Primarily, the research will concentrate on the interactions between interest rates, inflation, money supply and growth in GDP, which will serve as the instrument for measuring economic growth.Design/methodology/approachThe research will apply quantitative analysis to determine the relationship between GDP growth and monetary policy instruments, particularly interest rate, money supply and level of inflation. Given the advancement and achievement in econometric analysis and computer software creation, the least-squares estimates analysis will be used to investigate the relationship and significance between these variables.FindingsIt is observed that relationship between economic growth and inflation is positive. This entails that a 1 percent change in inflation will result in a 77 percent increase in the level of economic growth in this economy. The linkage between economic growth and interest rates has also been observed to be positive. A positive nexus can be observed between economic growth and money supply. The coefficient value of 0.02 for money supply growth shows that it has the smallest effect on economic growth amongst the variables tested in the model.Research limitations/implicationsBased on the findings of this study, the following recommendations can be made, which could serve as policies instruments for Malaysian economic development. This does not mean that the findings can be generalized for other developing economies.Practical implicationsObservations from the test for economic application significance are based on the signs of the parameters. It was observed that inflation, interest rates and money supply all have a positive relationship with economic growth, which is in line with the a priori expectations. This means that monetary policy has positively affected the economic growth.Social implicationsThe results of the OLS analysis reveal that the monetary policy instruments used for the model demonstrated that monetary policy has a positive relationship with economic growth in Malaysia. A breakdown of the individual monetary policy instruments shows that the interest rate, inflation and money supply all have individual positive relationships with economic growth.Originality/valueA positive relationship exists between economic growth in Malaysia and all selected monetary instruments, namely, inflation, money supply and interest rate. The results show that the results show that inflation, interest rate and money supply will cause the economy to grow but their contribution to the developments is affected from other policy instruments which are used by the governments.