Stock market and private consumption in Malaysia

The paper analyzes the influence of the stock market on aggregate consumption in Malaysia using a battery of time series approaches – the ARDL cointegration test, an error-correction modeling and a vector autoregression (VAR). In the analysis, real consumption is specified to depend linearly on real income and real stock market wealth as measured by real market capitalization. The ARDL cointegration test indicates the presence of a long-run relationship between consumption and its determinants, real income and real stock market wealth. At the same time, we also note positive short-run coefficient of current changes in real stock market wealth in the dynamic equation of real consumption. Finally, the variance decompositions and impulse-response functions simulated from the estimated VAR indicate a causal pattern that runs from real stock market wealth to real activities (consumption and income). Accordingly, based on these findings, the stock market wealth effect is unequivocally supported in Malaysia.