Consolidation and Competition in Emerging Market: An Empirical Test for Malaysian Banking Industry

This paper investigates the effect of bank consolidation on market structure and competition in Malaysian banking industry during the years of 1998–2005. The study evaluates the degree of competition using H-statistic proposed by Panzar and Rosse (1987 Testing for monopoly equilibrium. J Ind Econ 35:443–456). The estimated H-statistics are positive ranging from 0.53 to 0.81 and the Wald test for the market structure for monopoly or perfect competition is rejected. The results imply that the financial institutions in Malaysia earned their revenue in the condition of monopolistic competition with the traditional interest-based market is significantly less competitive than the overall market. The evidence is however insufficient to show that there is an increase in competition due to a change in the market structure. Thus, the findings suggest that additional competition policy is needed to ensure competition in the Malaysian banking market in view of further consolidation in the banking sector.     

The birth of modern Circassian nationalism

This article focuses on problems of the national movement of the Circassians – a small nation in the Caucasus, most of whose population is dispersed all over the world. The paper researches the development of the Circassian movement from 1989–2000 and its contemporary structure since 2005. The modern Circassian movement as a whole has never been approached from a political science viewpoint. This research aims to answer several core questions: What are the different strands of the movement? What principles are they based on? Who are the participants? What political forces support them? How do these political forces interact with each other?     

Combating crime among the Sukuma and Nyamwezi of West-Central Tanzania

Some time not very long ago the state was thought to be the provider of all services and its subjects were recipients. Today this view seems to have changed somewhat. The change is partly because the state has neither been able to do what it professed nor has it ever been able to do it effectively. It is also partly due to the fact that the world view has changed to acknowledge the strong part played by subjects in the making of their own history and in the fulfilment of their own potential. Different kinds of voluntary organizations are known to exist which fill the gaps caused by the absence of the state or its total failure. Very rarely, however, do we hear about voluntary organizations for the provision of order and security. This is still largely considered to be a monopoly of the state. This paper is about the Sungusungu vigilante groups among the Sukuma and Nyamwezi of rural Tanzania which came into existence in the early 1980s. These groups deal with order and security in their localities which the state sponsored criminal justice system has failed to provide. The groups are organized at the initiative of male elders and rely on rituals and divination for the performance of their activities. They have been in operation for more than a decade and the rural community gives them credit for the restoration of order.