This study aims to investigate the effects of government assistance programs on the well-being of urban low-income households during the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on Malaysians’ well-being, affecting a variety of factors such as income, health, and standard of living. To address the repercussions of the pandemic, the government has implemented diverse economic stimulus packages. Household well-being is assessed using four indicators: income, health, cost of living, and social relations. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in six regions of Malaysia. Data from 706 respondents was analysed using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The main findings reveal that government assistance programs enhance household well-being by reducing the cost of living, increasing income, improving health, and fostering social interactions. Specifically, among the four focused aspects, the programs have the most significant impact on improving the health of low-income households. These programs have the least effect on enhancing well-being through the reduction of the cost of living. Consequently, these findings provide valuable information to policymakers in understanding the effectiveness of government assistance programs during the crisis period. This nationwide evidence-based analysis will contribute additional insights to the formulation of future assistance programs aimed at improving the well-being of low-income households.

This paper discusses the development of ethical funds and the Islamic funds in Malaysia and evaluates how the investment criteria of ethical funds coincide with the investment perspective of the Islamic fund or vice versa. This study selected two ethical funds and analysed the investment criteria of both funds to determine the similarities and differences between ethical and Islamic funds. Data were collected from the fund manager master prospectus and annual report in various years. The findings suggest that an ethical fund cannot be regarded as an Islamic fund but an Islamic fund can be considered as an ethical fund.

The paper examines Islamic unit trust fund's performance and evaluates whether the performance persists over severa1 time periods. On average, overall funds' performance as well as each fund performance is evaluated. Besides using raw return, this paper also uses Sharpe index, Treynor index as well as Jensen Alpha index to evaluate the funds' performance. Evaluating persistence in performance is done by comparing &e performance measures on year to year basis starting 1999 to 2003 and also on several time intervals of one (1999)' two (1W9-2000)' three (1999-2001), four (1999-2002) and five (1999-2003) years. In addition, this study also ranks each trust fund according to the performance indicator. Top 25% and bottom 25% of the funds in the ranking are then analyzed to look at persistence in being in the place through the differing time intervals. The results show that persistence in performance of the overall funds, on average, cannot be proved in the differing time periods. However, the result differ when each fund is being evaluated . Some funds persist in performance while the others do not. Similar results are also shown in the ranking performance. Thus, the evidence of the persistence in performance could give some hints to the potential investors to carefully choose which funds to commit.