THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL NETWORK SITES AND SOCIAL ANXIETY AMONG UNIVERSITI PUTRA MALAYSIA UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS.

The study explore the relationship between social media communication and social anxiety among undergraduate students. The respondents were selected using a simple random technique. The data was collected by self-administered interview among 100 undergraduate students in Universiti Putra Malaysia. The Instruments used for data collection includes; Social Anxiety Questionnaire for Adults (SAQ-A30) and The Internet Addiction Test (IAT). Study revealed that Facebook was the most common social media patronized with 36 (36.70%) patronage, followed by Instagram with 33 (33.70%), WhatsApp 19 (19.40%) and finally Twitter with 10 (10.20%). Based on the respondents, most students use the social media for social communications and seeking information. The level of social anxiety among most undergraduate students of Human Ecology faculty in Universiti Putra Malaysia is high because approximately two third of the respondents possessed the higher score in social anxiety level. This implies that most undergraduate students of Universiti Putra Malaysia are up to date in information gathering and the use of social network has helped to facilitate social interaction among fellow students and friends thereby reducing the likelihood of students suffering social anxiety disorder.

The Determinants of Stock Market Development: A Panel Study of Developed, Emerging and Frontier Markets

The objective of the present study is to find the determinants of equity market development with a panel data of Developed, Emerging and Frontier Equity Markets. The determinants of equity market include both the quantitative and qualitative factors, whereas the former represents the macroeconomic variables, and the later embodies the governance variables. The study incorporates the panel data set of world stock markets of 70 countries, which are classified by international group of Financial Times Stock Exchanges (FTSE) in three main regions of the world as Developed (25), Emerging (21) and Frontier (24) Equity Markets and period of the study is 20 years starting from 1996 to 2015. Given the panel nature of the data, the econometric methodologies of dynamic Generalized Methods of Moments (GMM) has been incorporated to find the significant relationships on subject matter Moreover, the study has incorporated multifaceted statistical methodologies in all three regions of the world stock markets. Despite having different dynamics and resources, there are few similarities but there are some of the stark differences, which lead them to identify their uniqueness. The study finds that effects of economic and governance factors on stock market development are peculiar in nature and quite unique as per the dynamics of that particular region. For instance, the study finds that economic and governance factors are more influential in developed region as compared to emerging and frontier regions which is mainly due to strong institutional quality in the developed countries. The study has formed a composite index of Economic and Governance factors through Principal Component Analysis by using factors for each region of the world equity markets. Afterwards, cross-index of Economic and Governance Factors is formed for exploring the joint effects of these variables. The study reveals that there is strong correlation in these composite indices in the developed region, where as there is no clear pattern in the developing countries. Moreover, there is quite dispersion in the composite data of the developing countries. So, there is no direct correlation in the composite factors of economic and governance in the developing countries. The studies on exploring the direct effects are quite in abundance but the literature on indirect and cross effects of governance and economic factors on the development of stock market are quite scarce. The present study explores the comprehensive direct and indirect effects of governance factors as well as vice versa effects on the development of economy and equity market in all regions of the world equity markets. After the estimation, the study finds that effects of economic and governance factors on stock market development are not only unidirectional, but also bidirectional as well. Particularly, the emerging markets have dual effects on economic and governance factors. The indirect effects of governance through economic factors are significant in developed region and cross effects of governance and economic factors are significant in emerging markets. The vice versa effects of stock market development and economic growth suggests that economic growth is also affected by the development of stock market and governance factors particularly in frontier markets. The reverse impacts of stock market development on the economic growth are quite captivating in which development of stock market also affects the growth of economy in all three regions of the world. In the end, the study recommends that determinants of equity market may not solely based on economic factors rather the significance of governance factors may be taken into account while taking the complete picture of the subject. This study will append the knowledge of prevailing institutional works on equity markets and economy as well. Moreover, the formation of composite indices for governance and economic factors for all the regions of developed, emerging and frontier markets may append the existing knowledge database of financial markets.