ABSTRACT Poverty alleviation is a global concern and an essential element for fostering inclusive growth and reducing inequities. This condition inspired the authors to explore the role of governance in poverty, specifically focused on Malaysia. The current study employed the Bootstrapped Autoregressive Distributed Lag (BARDL) technique on data series collected from 1997 to 2022. The results revealed that governance plays a critical role in reducing poverty levels in Malaysia in the short and long run. The Granger causality analysis confirmed a unidirectional causality from governance to poverty, while the other variables exhibit bidirectional causality. The present study recommended that Malaysia enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of its governance to encourage poverty alleviation initiatives by cultivating transparency and accountability throughout the entire process.
Subramaniam et al. (2026) studied this question.