Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Digital Commons Network

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 31 - 60 of 77

Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network

Innovation, Imitation And Entrepreneurship, Kong Weng Ho, Grace Yong Jun 2006

Innovation, Imitation And Entrepreneurship, Kong Weng Ho, Grace Yong

Research Collection School Of Economics

No abstract provided.


Intergeneration Educational Mobility In Singapore: An Empirical Study, Kong Weng Ho, Regina Ng Jun 2006

Intergeneration Educational Mobility In Singapore: An Empirical Study, Kong Weng Ho, Regina Ng

Research Collection School Of Economics

No abstract provided.


The Transition From Relational To Legal Contract Enforcement, Fali Huang Jun 2006

The Transition From Relational To Legal Contract Enforcement, Fali Huang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper studies the transition of contract enforcement institutions. The prevalence of relational contracts, low legal quality, strong cultural preference for personalistic relationships, low social mobility, and highly unequal endowment form a cluster of mutually reinforcing institutions that hinder economic development. The cultural element per se does not necessarily reduce social welfare though it may slow down the legal development, while the real problem lies in endowment inequality and low social mobility. Thus a more equal distribution of resources may be the ultimate key to unravel the above interlocking institutions. These results are generally consistent with the empirical evidence.


Growth Accounting For A Follower-Economy In A World Of Ideas: The Example Of Singapore, Kong Weng Ho, Hian Teck Hoon Jun 2006

Growth Accounting For A Follower-Economy In A World Of Ideas: The Example Of Singapore, Kong Weng Ho, Hian Teck Hoon

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper, we take another approach to accounting for the sources of Singapore’s economic growth by being explicit about the channels through which Singapore, as a technological follower, benefits from international R&D spillovers. Taking into account the channels through which technology developed in the G5 countries diffuses to technological followers, we show that 57.5 percent of Singapore’s real GDP per worker growth rate over the 1970-2002 period is due to multifactor productivity growth. In particular, about 52 percent of the growth is accounted for by an increase in the effectiveness of accessing ideas developed by the technology leaders through …


A Spatial Analysis Of The Xiii Italian Legislature, Massimiliano Landi, Riccardo Pelizzo Jun 2006

A Spatial Analysis Of The Xiii Italian Legislature, Massimiliano Landi, Riccardo Pelizzo

Research Collection School Of Economics

We present a spatial map of the Italian House of Deputies during the XIII Legislature obtained by applying the Poole and Rosenthal methodology to roll call data. We estimate coordinates for almost all the 650 Deputies that were on the House’s floor at the time, and we aggregate them according to parties. We find that voting patters generate basically a two dimensional political space. The first dimension represents loyalty to either the ruling coalition or the opposing one. The second dimension is represented by the European Union. These findings are consistent with the exceptional case of the party Northern League, …


Green Revolutions And Miracle Economies: Agricultural Innovation, Trade And Growth, Brishti Guha Jun 2006

Green Revolutions And Miracle Economies: Agricultural Innovation, Trade And Growth, Brishti Guha

Research Collection School Of Economics

The purpose of this paper is to develop a simple model of an economy in which growth is driven by a combination of exogenous technical change in agriculture and a rising world demand for labor-intensive manufactured exports. We explore the relative roles of an exogenous agricultural productivity shock and rising export demand in a model with two traded industrial goods and a non-traded agricultural good, food. When the non-traded sector uses a specific factor, we show that technical change in agriculture may be the key to factor migration into industry, in particular driving intersectoral labor migration. A key assumption is …


Profile Likelihood Estimation Of Partially Linear Panel Data Models With Fixed Effects, Liangjun Su, Aman Ullah May 2006

Profile Likelihood Estimation Of Partially Linear Panel Data Models With Fixed Effects, Liangjun Su, Aman Ullah

Research Collection School Of Economics

We consider consistent estimation of partially linear panel data models with fixed effects. We propose profile-likelihood-based estimators for both the parametric and nonparametric components in the models and establish convergence rates and asymptotic normality for both estimators.


Analysing Survey Data With Incomplete Responses By Using A Method Based On Empirical Likelihood, Denis H. Y. Leung, Jing Qin May 2006

Analysing Survey Data With Incomplete Responses By Using A Method Based On Empirical Likelihood, Denis H. Y. Leung, Jing Qin

Research Collection School Of Economics

In many surveys, missing response is a common problem. As an example, Zahner, Jacobs, Freeman and Trainor analysed data from a study of child psychopathology in the State of Connecticut, USA. In that study, the response variable, psychopathology, was inferred from questions that were addressed to teachers of the children and was subject to a high level of missingness. However, the missing responses were supplemented by surrogate information that was provided by the parents and/or the primary care providers of the children. In such a situation, it is conceivable that the supplemental information can be used to recover some of …


External Debt, Adjustment, And Growth, Roberto S. Mariano, Delano Villanueva May 2006

External Debt, Adjustment, And Growth, Roberto S. Mariano, Delano Villanueva

Research Collection School Of Economics

High ratios of external debt to GDP in selected Asian countries have contributed to the initiation, propagation, and severity of the financial and economic crises in recent years, reflecting runaway fiscal deficits and excessive foreign borrowing by the private sector. More importantly, the servicing of large debt stocks has diverted scarce resources from investment and long-term growth.


Functional Form And Spatial Dependence In Dynamic Panels, Zhenlin Yang, Chen Wei Li, Yiu Kuen Tse Apr 2006

Functional Form And Spatial Dependence In Dynamic Panels, Zhenlin Yang, Chen Wei Li, Yiu Kuen Tse

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper proposes a generalized dynamic error component model that simultaneously accounts for the effects of functional form and spatial dependence. Maximum likelihood method is used for model estimation and inference. An empirical illustration using the demand for cigarettes data is given.


Forecasting The Global Electronics Cycle With Leading Indicators: A Bayesian Var Approach, Hwee Kwan Chow, Keen Meng Choy Apr 2006

Forecasting The Global Electronics Cycle With Leading Indicators: A Bayesian Var Approach, Hwee Kwan Chow, Keen Meng Choy

Research Collection School Of Economics

Developments in the global electronics industry are typically monitored by tracking indicators that span a whole spectrum of activities in the sector. However, these indicators invariably give mixed signals at each point in time, thereby hampering attempts at prediction. In this paper, we propose a unified framework for forecasting the global electronics cycle by constructing a VAR model that captures the economic interactions between putative leading indicators representing expectations, orders, inventories and prices. The ability of the indicators to presage world semiconductor sales is first examined by Granger causality tests. Subsequently, an impulse response analysis confirms the leading qualities of …


Industry Leaders Debate Big Pharma R&D (Too Little Hope?) And Stem Cell Research (Too Much Hype?), Knowledge@Smu Mar 2006

Industry Leaders Debate Big Pharma R&D (Too Little Hope?) And Stem Cell Research (Too Much Hype?), Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Different points on the research spectrum were under the microscope at the Wharton Health Care Business Conference last month as two panels of biotech, pharmaceutical and investment leaders discussed the state of R&D among big pharmaceuticals and the progress of stem cell research. While disappointing results in both sectors have dominated the news lately, panelists at each session also noted some promising developments -- and causes for optimism -- in their respective fields.


Regulation And Freedom In Global Business Education, Stefano Harney, Cliff Oswick Mar 2006

Regulation And Freedom In Global Business Education, Stefano Harney, Cliff Oswick

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Purpose: This paper seeks to confront the orthodoxy of global business education with some insights from postcolonial theory in order to develop a new critical pedagogy adequate for a global sociology of management and accounting. Design/methodology/approach: Reviewing the state of play in postcolonial theory and noting the new politicisation in that field, the paper asks what relevance this politicisation might have for an alternative to orthodox global business education. Findings: The paper finds that the texts available to postcolonial theory present a wealth beyond the regulation of colonial and neo‐colonial regimes and in contrast critical management studies do not have …


Singapore's Transition To Innovation-Based Economic Growth: Infrastructure, Institutions And Government's Role, Winston T. H. Koh Mar 2006

Singapore's Transition To Innovation-Based Economic Growth: Infrastructure, Institutions And Government's Role, Winston T. H. Koh

Research Collection School Of Economics

Technological progress and innovation plays a central role in a country's economic progress. As an economy advances to the global technological frontier and narrows the technological gap, an innovation-based growth strategy that focuses on investments in R&D and technology creation offers the greatest potential for economic growth. In this paper, we discuss the requirements for a successful transition, in terms of changes to the technology infrastructure, economic institutions and the incentives' structure. This paper outlines the efforts made by Singapore to re-make itself as an innovation-based economy, and the challenges faced by the government in transforming the nation's infrastructure and …


The Rise In House Prices In China: Bubbles Or Fundamentals?, Jianying Hu, Liangjun Su, Sainan Jin, Wanjun Jiang Mar 2006

The Rise In House Prices In China: Bubbles Or Fundamentals?, Jianying Hu, Liangjun Su, Sainan Jin, Wanjun Jiang

Research Collection School Of Economics

The dramatic rise of house prices in many cities of China has brought huge attention from both the governmental and academic circles. There is a huge debate on whether the increasing house prices are driven by market fundamentals or just by speculation. Like Levin and Wright (1997a, 1997b), we decompose house prices in China into fundamental and non−fundamental components. We also consider potential nonlinear feedback from the historical growth rate of house prices on the current house prices and propose a semiparametric approach to estimate the speculative components in the model. We demonstrate that the non−fundamental part contributes a relatively …


Profiting From Mean-Reverting Yield Curve Trading Strategies, Choong Tze Chua, Winston T. H. Koh, Krishna Ramaswamy Mar 2006

Profiting From Mean-Reverting Yield Curve Trading Strategies, Choong Tze Chua, Winston T. H. Koh, Krishna Ramaswamy

Research Collection School Of Economics

This article studies a set of yield curve trading strategies that are based on the view that the yield curve mean reverts to an unconditional curve. These mean-reverting trading strategies exploit deviations in the level, slope, and curvature of the yield curve from historical norms. Some mean-reverting strategies were found to have significant positive profits. Furthermore, the profitability of one of these strategies significantly outperforms, on a risk-adjusted basis, alternative strategies of an investment bond or equity index.


Employee Screening: Theory And Evidence, Fali Huang, Peter Cappelli Mar 2006

Employee Screening: Theory And Evidence, Fali Huang, Peter Cappelli

Research Collection School Of Economics

Arguably the fundamental problem faced by employers is how to elicit effort from employees. Most models suggest that employers meet this challenge by monitoring employees carefully to prevent shirking. But there is another option that relies on heterogeneity across employees, and that is to screen job candidates to find workers with a stronger work ethic who require less monitoring. This should be especially useful in work systems where monitoring by supervisors is more difficult, such as teamwork systems. We analyze the relationship between screening and monitoring in the context of a principal-agent model and test the theoretical results using a …


Expectations, Animal Spirits, And Evolutionary Dynamics, Angelo Antoci, Massimiliano Landi, Pier Luigi Sacco Mar 2006

Expectations, Animal Spirits, And Evolutionary Dynamics, Angelo Antoci, Massimiliano Landi, Pier Luigi Sacco

Research Collection School Of Economics

We consider a (deterministic) evolutionary model where players have dynamic expectations about the strategy distribution. We provide a global analysis of the co-evolution of play and expectations for a generic two-by-two game. Besides the the typical indeterminacy of the evolutionary dynamics, we find some other ones: for any initial strategy configuration the dynamics can converge to any asymptotically stable fixed point, for different initial values of the expectations. Moreover, starting from the same initial pair of strategy configuration and values of expectations, the dynamics may lead to different asymptotically stable fixed points for different parameters of the expectations.


Underpriced Default Spread Exacerbates Market Crashes, Winston T. H. Koh, Roberto S. S. Mariano, Andrey Pavlov, Sock Yong Phang, Augustine H. H. Tan, Susan M. Wachter Mar 2006

Underpriced Default Spread Exacerbates Market Crashes, Winston T. H. Koh, Roberto S. S. Mariano, Andrey Pavlov, Sock Yong Phang, Augustine H. H. Tan, Susan M. Wachter

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper, we develop a specific observable symptom of a banking system that underprices the default spread in non-recourse asset-backed lending. Using three different data sets for 18 countries and property types, we find that, following a negative demand shock, the “underpricing” economies experience far deeper asset market crashes than economies in which the put option is correctly priced. Furthermore, only one of the countries in our sample continues to exhibit the underpricing symptom following a market crash. This indicates that market crashes have a cleansing effect and eliminate underpricing at least for a period of time. This makes …


Multivariate Stochastic Volatility: A Review, Manabu Asai, Michael Mcaleer, Jun Yu Mar 2006

Multivariate Stochastic Volatility: A Review, Manabu Asai, Michael Mcaleer, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

The literature on multivariate stochastic volatility (MSV) models has developed significantly over the last four years. This paper reviews the substantial literature on specification, estimation, and evaluation of MSV models. A wide range of MSV models is presented according to various categories, namely, (i) asymmetric models, (ii) factor models, (iii) time-varying correlation models, and (iv) alternative MSV specifications, including models based on the matrix exponential transformation, the Cholesky decomposition, and the Wishart autoregressive process. Alternative methods of estimation, including quasi-maximum likelihood, simulated maximum likelihood, and Markov chain Monte Carlo methods, are discussed and compared. Various methods of diagnostic checking and …


Effects Of Technological Improvement In The Ict Producing Sector On Business Activity, Hian Teck Hoon, Edmund S. Phelps Feb 2006

Effects Of Technological Improvement In The Ict Producing Sector On Business Activity, Hian Teck Hoon, Edmund S. Phelps

Research Collection School Of Economics

It seems to be taken for granted by many commentators that the sharp decline in prices of computers, telecommunications equipment and software resulting from the technological improvements in the information and communications technology (ICT)-producing sector is good for jobs and is a major driving force behind the non-inflationary employment miracle and booming stock market in the latter half of the nineties in the U.S. and their recurrence since 2004. We show that, in our model, a technical improvement in the ICT-producing sector by itself cannot explain a simultaneous increase in employment and a rise in firms’ valuation (or Tobin’s Q …


A Simple Test For Multivariate Conditional Symmetry, Liangjun Su Feb 2006

A Simple Test For Multivariate Conditional Symmetry, Liangjun Su

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper proposes a simple consistent nonparametric test of multivariate conditional symmetry based on the principle of characteristic functions. The test statistic is shown to be asymptotically normal under the null and consistent against any conditional asymmetric distributions.


Strategy Meets Evolution: Games Suppliers And Producers Play, Brishti Guha Feb 2006

Strategy Meets Evolution: Games Suppliers And Producers Play, Brishti Guha

Research Collection School Of Economics

Final goods producers, who may be intrinsically honest (a behavioral type) or opportunistic (strategic), play a repeated game of imperfect information with suppliers of an input of variable (and non-verifiable) quality. Returns to cheating are increasing in the proportion of intrinsically honest producers. If producers compete for another scarce input, adverse selection reduces this proportion enough to enforce universal honesty, whether at a high or a low quality equilibrium. This mechanism limits the proportion of behavioral types in the population of producers over a wide range of parameters: despite their inability to compete with opportunists, they are not wholly wiped …


A Semi-Parametric Estimator For Censored Selection Models With Endogeneity, Myoung-Jae Lee, Francis Vella Feb 2006

A Semi-Parametric Estimator For Censored Selection Models With Endogeneity, Myoung-Jae Lee, Francis Vella

Research Collection School Of Economics

We propose a semi-parametric least-squares estimator for a censored-selection (type 3 tobit) model under the mean independence of the outcome equation error u from the regressors given the selection indicator and its error term ɛ. This assumption is relatively weak in comparison to alternative estimators for this model and allows certain unknown forms of heteroskedasticity, an asymmetric error distribution, and an arbitrary relationship between the u and ɛ. The estimator requires only one-dimensional smoothing on the estimate of ɛ. We generalize the estimator to allow for an endogenous regressor whose equation contains an error w related to u and discuss …


Central Asia's Transition After Fifteen Years: Growth And Policy Choices, Malcolm Dowling, Ganeshan Vignaraja Feb 2006

Central Asia's Transition After Fifteen Years: Growth And Policy Choices, Malcolm Dowling, Ganeshan Vignaraja

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper presents a coherent and systematic analysis of the collapse and subsequent revival of the Central Asian Republics (CARs) since 1990. The focus is on the pattern of growth and structural change during the cycle of decline and subsequent revival in the CARs which have been inadequately analyzed in the literature on transition. The paper relates economic performance to initial conditions, country characteristics and policies. Within this framework, it proposes a simple typology of policies (including a new Type III set of policies on regional cooperation and industrial competitiveness) and relates them to the cycle of decline and revival …


Competition Policy In Indonesia, Malcolm Dowling Feb 2006

Competition Policy In Indonesia, Malcolm Dowling

Research Collection School Of Economics

The Indonesian economy was dominated by the government in the decades of the 1970s and 1980s through its control of major mining, manufacturing and agricultural activities. Hill (2000) estimates that as much as 40% of non-agricultural GDP was accounted for by government entities in the late 1980s There were still a lot of government corporations up until the late 1980s and early 1990s and governmental control over the banking system was still substantial.


Functional Sunspot Equilibria, Shurojit Chatterji, Subir Chattopadhyay Feb 2006

Functional Sunspot Equilibria, Shurojit Chatterji, Subir Chattopadhyay

Research Collection School Of Economics

Consider a one step forward looking model where agents believe that the equilibrium values of the state variable are determined by a function whose domain is the current value of the state variable and whose range is the value for the subsequent period. An agent's forecast for the subsequent period uses the belief, where the function that is chosen is allowed to depend on the current realization of an extrinsic random process, and is made with knowledge of the past values of the state variable but not the current value. The paper provides (and characterizes) the conditions for the existence …


More Efficient Estimation In Nonparametric Regression With Nonparametric Autocorrelated Errors, Liangjun Su, Aman Ullah Feb 2006

More Efficient Estimation In Nonparametric Regression With Nonparametric Autocorrelated Errors, Liangjun Su, Aman Ullah

Research Collection School Of Economics

We define a three-step procedure for more efficient estimation of the nonparametric regression mean with nonparametric autocorrelated errors. The procedure is based upon a nonparametric prewhitening transformation of the dependent variable that has to be estimated from the data by a local polynomial technique. We establish the asymptotic distribution of our estimator under weak dependence conditions and show that it is more efficient than the conventional local polynomial estimator. Furthermore, we consider criterion functions based on the linear exponential family, which include the local polynomial least squares criterion as a special case. Simulation evidence suggests that significant gains can be …


How Well Can We Target Resources With Quick-And-Dirty Data?: Empirical Results From Cambodia, Tomoki Fujii Feb 2006

How Well Can We Target Resources With Quick-And-Dirty Data?: Empirical Results From Cambodia, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

Proverty reduction is a top priority for international organizations, governments and non-gorvernmental organizations. The aid resources available for poverty reduction are, however, severely constrained in many countries. Minimizing the leakage of aid resources to the non-poor is a key to maximize poverty reduction with the limited amount of resources available. One Way to minimize such leakage to to target resources geographically. That is, policmakers can move resources to the poorest parts of the country. Geographic taregting can quite effective when poverty is unevenly distributed across the country, and this proves to be the case in many countries.


The Micro-Foundations Of Intertemporal Price Discrimination, Winston T. H. Koh Feb 2006

The Micro-Foundations Of Intertemporal Price Discrimination, Winston T. H. Koh

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper investigates the optimality of intertemporal price discrimination for a durable-good monopoly in a model where infinitely-lived households face an intertemporal budget constraint, and consume both durable goods and non-durable goods. We prove that the optimal price of the durable good is not constant, and may decrease or increase over time. Some households may choose to purchase the durable good at a later date, and pay lower or higher prices, since the gain in discounted utility of consuming more of the non-durable good more than compensates for the loss in utility from delaying the consumption of the durable good. …