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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Short-Term Impact Of Covid-19 On Consumption Spending And Its Underlying Mechanisms: Evidence From Singapore, Seonghoon Kim, Kanghyock Koh, Xuan Zhang
Short-Term Impact Of Covid-19 On Consumption Spending And Its Underlying Mechanisms: Evidence From Singapore, Seonghoon Kim, Kanghyock Koh, Xuan Zhang
Research Collection School Of Economics
We examine the short-term impact of COVID-19 on consumption spending and labor market outcomes. Using monthly panel data of individuals mainly aged 50–70 in Singapore, we find that COVID-19 reduced consumption spending and labor market outcomes immediately after its outbreak, and its negative impact quickly evolved. At its peak, the pandemic reduced total household consumption spending by 22.8% and labor income by 5.9% in April. Probability of full-time work also went down by 1.2 pp and 6.0 pp in April and May, respectively, but employment and self-employment were only mildly affected. Our heterogeneity analysis indicates that the reduction in consumption …
Providing Childcare, Christine Ho, Sunha Myong
Providing Childcare, Christine Ho, Sunha Myong
Research Collection School Of Economics
Women’s economic empowerment has been hailed as one of the most remarkable revolutions in the past 50 years. Yet, women still face the lion’s share of the burden of childcare despite major progress in their education and earnings capacity. This is particularly salient in many Asian countries. This chapter proposes a synthesis of the state of knowledge on childcare and discusses policy-relevant issues applicable to the Singapore context. Selected policies are documented and lessons from the international landscape are discussed. Raising children incurs both direct costs in the form of childcare and opportunity costs in the form of career costs. …
High-Frequency Internet Survey Of A Probability Sample Of Older Singaporeans: The Singapore Life Panel, Rhema Vaithianathan, Bryce Hool, Michael D. Hurd, Susann Rohwedder
High-Frequency Internet Survey Of A Probability Sample Of Older Singaporeans: The Singapore Life Panel, Rhema Vaithianathan, Bryce Hool, Michael D. Hurd, Susann Rohwedder
Research Collection School Of Economics
Facing a rapidly ageing population, Singapore is presented with urgent policy challenges. Yet there is very little data on the economic, health and family circumstances of older Singaporeans. In response, the Centre for Research on the Economics of Ageing (CREA) at Singapore Management University has been collecting monthly data on a panel of Singaporeans aged between 50 and 70 years. We detail the methodology by which the Singapore Life Panel® (SLP) was constructed using a population-representative sampling frame from the Singapore Department of Statistics. Contact was made with 25,000 households through postal, phone and in-person canvassing. More than 15,200 respondents …
Happy Lottery Winners And Lottery-Ticket Bias, Seonghoon Kim, Andrew J. Oswald
Happy Lottery Winners And Lottery-Ticket Bias, Seonghoon Kim, Andrew J. Oswald
Research Collection School Of Economics
The world spends a remarkable $250 billion a year on lottery tickets. Yet, perplexingly, it has proved difficult for social scientists to show that lottery windfalls actually make people happier. This is the famous and still unresolved paradox due initially to Brickman and colleagues. Here we describe an underlying weakness that has affected the research area, and explain the concept of lottery‐ticket bias (LT bias), which stems from unobservable lottery spending. We then collect new data—in the world’s most intense lottery‐playing nation, Singapore—on the amount that people spend on lottery tickets (n = 5626). We demonstrate that, once we correct …
The Effects Of Income On Health: Evidence From Lottery Wins In Singapore, Seonghoon Kim, Kanghyock Koh
The Effects Of Income On Health: Evidence From Lottery Wins In Singapore, Seonghoon Kim, Kanghyock Koh
Research Collection School Of Economics
We estimate the causal effects of household income on self-reported health status by exploiting random variations in the amount of lottery prizes won. We find that a S$10,000 (US$7,245) increase in income via lottery wins improves individuals’ health by a standard deviation of 0.18. As possible mechanisms, we find that lottery wins increase household consumption spending and improve overall life satisfaction, but do not change healthcare spending, labor supply, and risky health behavior. Previous studies, which focused on the health effects of lottery prizes in Western European countries with strong social safety nets, do not find positive effects other than …
Housing Equity And Household Consumption In Retirement: Evidence From The Singapore Life Panel©, Lipeng Chen, Liang Jiang, Sock Yong Phang, Jun Yu
Housing Equity And Household Consumption In Retirement: Evidence From The Singapore Life Panel©, Lipeng Chen, Liang Jiang, Sock Yong Phang, Jun Yu
Research Collection School Of Economics
Housing affordability for elderly homeowners involves an entirely different set of issues as compared to housing affordability for first-time homeowners. To afford to ‘age-in-place’ may require homeowners to access channels that enable them to withdraw their housing equity to finance consumption in retirement. We utilize data from the Singapore Life Panel© survey to empirically investigate the impact of housing equity on the consumption of elderly households. Based on panel analysis, we find housing equity value has no significant impact on non-durable consumption for elderly people. The conclusion holds for a battery of robustness checks. Moreover, heterogeneity analyses based on subsamples …
Covid-19, Lockdown, And The Dynamics Of Subjective Well-Being, Terence C. Cheng, Kim, Kanghyock Koh
Covid-19, Lockdown, And The Dynamics Of Subjective Well-Being, Terence C. Cheng, Kim, Kanghyock Koh
Research Collection School Of Economics
We provide novel evidence on how the COVID-19 global health and economic crisis is affecting overall life satisfaction and domain-specific satisfaction using data from a monthly longitudinal survey of middle-aged and older Singaporeans. Using a difference-in-differences framework, we document large declines in overall life satisfaction and domain-specific satisfaction during the COVID-19 outbreak, except satisfaction with health. These declines coincide with the introduction of a nationwide lockdown, with life satisfaction remaining below its pre-pandemic levels even after the lockdown is lifted. We also find that individuals who report a drop in household income during the COVID-19 outbreak experience a decline in …
Income And Subjective Well-Being: Evidence From Singapore's First National Non-Contributory Pension, Yanying Chen, Yi Jin Tan
Income And Subjective Well-Being: Evidence From Singapore's First National Non-Contributory Pension, Yanying Chen, Yi Jin Tan
Research Collection School Of Economics
We use a new monthly panel and a difference-in-differences strategy to study the effects of an exogenous permanent income shock on subjective well-being along previously unexplored dimensions. This permanent income shock is the introduction of Singapore’s first national non-contributory pension, the Silver Support Scheme. The pension improved the life satisfaction of recipients, and appeared to be driven by social, household income, and economic satisfaction. Consistent with the predictions of standard consumption-savings models, well-being improved when the shock was unanticipated (at announcement), but did not improve significantly further when the shock was anticipated (at disbursement). In addition, we find evidence that …
Contributors Of Singaporean Youths' Wellbeing: Life Goals, Family-Community-Nation Capitals, Opportunity And Social Mobility, Kong Weng Ho
Contributors Of Singaporean Youths' Wellbeing: Life Goals, Family-Community-Nation Capitals, Opportunity And Social Mobility, Kong Weng Ho
Research Collection School Of Economics
Life goals induce one’s current investment and set one’s expectations of future outcomes, affecting one’s current state of subjective wellbeing. Using National Youth Survey (NYS) 2016, which has a representative sample of Singaporean youths, we find that non-zero-sum life goals such as family-oriented life goals and altruism-oriented life goals enhance happiness and life satisfaction of Singaporean youths while career-oriented life goals, zero-sum in nature, reduce subjective wellbeing. Apart from personal motivations or life aspirations, perceived social mobility (in terms of career opportunity and meritocracy) matters positively in the subjective wellbeing of both youths in school and in the workforce. Family …
Retirement Adequacy Of Mature Workers In Singapore, Rhema Vaithianathan, Stephen Hoskins
Retirement Adequacy Of Mature Workers In Singapore, Rhema Vaithianathan, Stephen Hoskins
Research Collection School Of Economics
In the last decade, the Singapore resident population has grown older with more elderly and fewer younger people. As Singapore Department of Statistics noted, the proportion of residents aged 65 years and over has increased from 9% to 13% over the past ten years. There are now fewer working-age adults to support each resident aged 65 years and over as indicated by the falling resident old-age support ratio from 7.7 in 2007 to 5.1 in 2017. The support ratio is expected to halve to 2.5 by 2030. As Singaporeans are both living and working longer, it is vital for the …
Wellbeing Of Singapore’S Youths, Kong Weng Ho
Wellbeing Of Singapore’S Youths, Kong Weng Ho
Research Collection School Of Economics
Given Singapore’s focus on human capital investment in its residents, the nation’s youths have experienced increases in their financial, educational, and physical wellbeing. However, how have our youths fared in their emotional and mental wellbeing? Figures from the World Values Survey show reported a gradual decline in life satisfaction for both general population and youths. Data from four waves of the National Youth Survey confirms this trend. This chapter explores and examines the non-economic channels that may have countered the positive influence of economic success on the wellbeing of youths, namely, changing family structure, heightened stressors, shifting life goals, time …
Expectations Formation And Forecasting Of Vehicle Demand: An Empirical Study Of The Vehicle Quota Auctions In Singapore, Sing-Fat Chu, Winston T. H. Koh, Yiu Kuen Tse
Expectations Formation And Forecasting Of Vehicle Demand: An Empirical Study Of The Vehicle Quota Auctions In Singapore, Sing-Fat Chu, Winston T. H. Koh, Yiu Kuen Tse
Research Collection School Of Economics
This paper studies expectations formation and forecasting of vehicle demand in Singapore under the vehicle quota system. Under the system, a car buyer must first bid for a vehicle license in monthly auctions in order to purchase a new car. We construct an econometric model to test the hypothesis that past bid distributions of the license auctions contain information that car buyers can use to update their expectations about the intensity of market demand, forecast license premiums and formulate their bidding strategies in future auctions. Our empirical analysis indicates that past bid distributions have a good degree of predictive power …
Expectations Formation And Forecasting Of Vehicle Demand: An Empirical Study Of The Vehicle Quota Auctions In Singapore, Sing-Fat Chu, Winston T. H. Koh, Yiu Kuen Tse
Expectations Formation And Forecasting Of Vehicle Demand: An Empirical Study Of The Vehicle Quota Auctions In Singapore, Sing-Fat Chu, Winston T. H. Koh, Yiu Kuen Tse
Research Collection School Of Economics
This paper studies the expectations formation and forecasting of vehicle demand in Singapore under the vehicle quota system. Under the system, a car buyer must first bid for a vehicle license in monthly auctions in order to purchase a new car. We construct an econometric model to test the hypothesis that past bid distributions of the license auctions contain information that car buyers can use to update their expectations about the intensity of market demand, forecast the license premiums and formulate their bidding strategies in future auctions. Our empirical analysis indicates that past bid distributions have a good degree of …