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A rise in global agricultural commodity prices negatively affects the wellbeing of poor people, especially in developing countries and inversely for a decline in prices of these commodities. On the other hand, they may gain or lose from high or low prices especially those groups that work in production of these commodities. This study, by applying a computable general equilibrium approach, aims to investigate the impacts of high and low agricultural commodity prices on agricultural sector and poverty across nine household groups in an unemployment situation of factors of production. It is found that, as a whole, a 45% increase and decrease in agricultural commodity prices negatively influences the economic performance of Malaysia, in real terms, by 0.24 and 0.91%, respectively. While high agricultural price stimulates the investment and export of agricultural sectors and aggregate household consumption, lower agricultural commodity prices declines investment and export in these sectors and causes a decrease in aggregate household consumption. Although both high- and low-price scenarios increase the poverty level of all household groups, with greater magnitude for lower-price scenario, all rural household groups compared to urban groups experience more increase in their poverty.

Malaysia is among the relatively more open economies in Asia. Many economic and environmental effects resulting from trade liberalization are cause of caution for more open economies like Malaysia. This study, by applying a computable general equilibrium, investigates the economic and environmental effects resulting from trade liberalization on Malaysia. It uses 2005 social accounting matrix as the main database in the model. By considering tariff reforms, this study concluded that 50 and 100 % trade liberalization, respectively, lead to 0.06 and 0.13 % increase in real gross domestic product and 0.6 and 1.29 % increase in trade flows. Therefore, greater liberalization leads to a greater increase in the overall real GDP and Malaysian trade flows. The 50 and 100 % tariff reforms also increase rural household consumption, respectively, by 0.45 and 0.92 % leading to an increase in their welfare by 0.49 and 1.01 %. There is such a situation for other household groups. Moreover, we found that both tariff reforms would lead to greater reduction in poverty gap and poverty severity (by 4.8 and 7.8 %, respectively) in urban households in comparison with other household groups. Results indicate that emissions of four more local air pollutants, (i.e., particular matter, CO, SO2and NOx) are predicted to decrease, respectively, by 12, 11, 11 and 12 % as a result of trade liberalization, while emission of carbon dioxide, as a global air pollutant, increases by 0.14 %. Results also suggest that the environmental impacts will be considerably greater, if the rate of tariff will be lower than the current rates.

Few studies have differentiated oil demand shocks from oil supply shocks in the literature that has investigated the impacts of these issues on the prices of agricultural products. This study attempts to investigate this problem by employing a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) technique on Malaysian data from January 1993 to December 2019. We found that the reactions of agricultural commodity prices to the changes in global oil prices largely depend on whether they result from oil demand shocks or oil supply shocks. Global oil demand shocks before the food price crisis (2006–2008) can explain a large share of the changes in prices of agricultural products, while after that period, their capacity to explain these changes becomes much weaker. After the food crisis period, the contribution of the oil supply shock to changes in the prices of agricultural products is higher than that of the oil demand shock. We can conclude that the role of oil supply in the economy in explaining changes in the prices of agricultural commodities is stronger after the food price crisis. This is because Malaysia’s economy, as a net oil exporter, benefits from higher oil prices resulting in higher demand for agricultural products and, consequently, higher prices for agricultural commodities.

This study employs a multi-sector computable general equilibrium model to investigate the long-run impacts of three scenarios, namely high prices of petroleum products, energy subsidy reform and the combine of both, on the Malaysian transport sector. The long-run simulation results suggest that all shocks are beneficial for the entire economy because of the increase in real GDP and investment. The shocks encourage the reallocation of resources and therefore induce disparities in sectoral adjustments. All transport sectors, except water transport, gain from high petroleum prices due to the increase in their domestic output, domestic sales and exports, while they lose from the energy subsidy reform and the combined scenario. The shocks lead to significant changes in travel behaviour of all household types through a change in their use of transport sub-sectors. The combined scenario followed by the high petroleum price shock greatly reduces energy consumption and emissions of all air pollutants in the transport sectors. These findings enhance our understanding of the transport impact of oil price shocks and energy subsidy reform and should be of much interest to scholars, corporate executives, travel agencies, regulators, and policy makers.

Uncertainty in global oil prices significantly influences the economic performance of Malaysia as a net oil–exporting country. This study uses an integrated approach, in which a stochastic method is integrated with a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to examine the impacts of likely change in global oil price on energy efficiency and, consequently, on key economic, energy, and environmental variables of Malaysia. The stochastic method, which is related to the Monte Carlo assessment, is based on historical data of global oil price, during 1980–2017, provides probable changes in oil price and their probability of occurrence. Simulation results show that likely changes in global oil price, with a 90% probability, change energy efficiency in Malaysia between - 0.08 and + 0.06% within which the economic performance of Malaysia changes between - 5.22 and 3.00% and household welfare changes between - 4.81 and 2.92%. Furthermore, the energy demand changes between 1.51 and - 2.93% and CO2emission changes between 4.21 and - 2.03%. However, the emission of other air pollutants changes between - 2.45 and 2.21%. These economic and environmental changes generate a double dividend effect on the Malaysian economy. The value of the rebound effect also changes between 103.21 and 95.79%. Therefore, the paper highlights a strong interconnection among oil price fluctuation, energy efficiency, energy consumption, CO2emission, and economic growth and thus the necessity for an integrated policymaking method.