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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Contributions To The Committee On The Future Economy, Singapore Management University Mar 2016

Contributions To The Committee On The Future Economy, Singapore Management University

Research Collection School Of Economics

In response to the call to contribute to the dialogue initiated by the Committee on The Future Economy (CFE), SMU has held a series of engagement sessions with faculty and staff to brainstorm and propose recommendations to add to the government’s deliberations on strategies for the next stage of Singapore’s economic growth. Through the leadership of SMU Provost, Professor Lily Kong, faculty and senior staff produced various recommendations on five key areas namely Corporate Capabilities and Innovation, Future Growth Industries & Markets, Future of Connectivity, Future City and Future Jobs and Skills.


Hot Property In New Zealand: Empirical Evidence Of Housing Bubbles In The Metropolitan Centres, Ryan Greenaway-Mcgrevy, Peter C. B. Phillips Jan 2016

Hot Property In New Zealand: Empirical Evidence Of Housing Bubbles In The Metropolitan Centres, Ryan Greenaway-Mcgrevy, Peter C. B. Phillips

Research Collection School Of Economics

Using recently developed statistical methods for testing and dating exuberant behaviour in asset prices we document evidence of episodic bubbles in the New Zealand property market over the past two decades. The results show clear evidence of a broad-based New Zealand housing bubble that began in 2003 and collapsed over mid-2007 to early 2008 with the onset of the worldwide recession and the financial crisis. New methods of analysing market contagion are also developed and are used to examine spillovers from the Auckland property market to the other metropolitan centres. Evidence from the latest data reveals that the greater Auckland …


Inference In Near-Singular Regression, Peter C. B. Phillips Jan 2016

Inference In Near-Singular Regression, Peter C. B. Phillips

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper considers stationary regression models with near-collinear regressors. Limit theory is developed for regression estimates and test statistics in cases where the signal matrix is nearly singular in finite samples and is asymptotically degenerate. Examples include models that involve evaporating trends in the regressors that arise in conditions such as growth convergence. Structural equation models are also considered and limit theory is derived for the corresponding instrumental variable (IV) estimator, Wald test statistic, and overidentification test when the regressors are endogenous. It is shown that near-singular designs of the type considered here are not completely fatal to least squares …


The Role Of The State In Singapore: Pragmatism In Pursuit Of Growth, Kim Song Tan, Manu Bhaskaran Aug 2015

The Role Of The State In Singapore: Pragmatism In Pursuit Of Growth, Kim Song Tan, Manu Bhaskaran

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper looks at how government intervention shapes the evolution of the Singapore economy and accounts for its successes and failures over the past 50 years. Compared with other dynamic Asian economies, the Singapore government's approach to intervene in the economy is both more extensive and more intrusive, but with a narrow focus on GDP growth and surplus accumulation as the primary objectives. The ruling government's near complete dominance in politics has enabled it to mobilize resources to create the preconditions for strong GDP growth and high savings. But the impact on the broader development of the economy and the …


Asian Tiger Economies' Choices, Hwee Kwan Chow-Tan Jan 2015

Asian Tiger Economies' Choices, Hwee Kwan Chow-Tan

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper considers the choices facing the Asian tiger economies regarding growth strategies that foster trans-Pacific rebalancing. A review of historical data spanning 2000 to 2008 reveals only a slight widening of the overall current account surplus but that there is considerable variation across the countries, with Hong Kong, China exhibiting the biggest increase in the saving and investment (S-I) balance. Meanwhile, cross-correlation coefficient estimates tentatively suggest that changes in the real effective exchange rate do not seem to exhibit a consistent negative lead over changes in the S-I gap in the short run over the past decade. Highimport leakage, …


Singapore’S Competitiveness At Risk, Augustine H. H. Tan Jul 2014

Singapore’S Competitiveness At Risk, Augustine H. H. Tan

Research Collection School Of Economics

Singapore’s disappointing second-quarter growth of 2.1 per cent compared with the same period last year has raised concerns about the impact of economic restructuring. When compared with the last quarter, growth even dipped 0.8 per cent. At the same time, productivity performance has been dismal. After rising by 2.2 per cent in 2011, productivity dropped by 1.4 per cent in 2012 and another 0.2 per cent last year.


Dynamic Poverty Decomposition Analysis: An Application To The Philippines, Tomoki Fujii Feb 2014

Dynamic Poverty Decomposition Analysis: An Application To The Philippines, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper, we propose a new method of poverty decomposition. Our method remedies the shortcomings of existing methods and has some desirable properties such as time reversion consistency and subperiod additivity. It integrates the existing methods of growth redistribution decomposition and sector-based decomposition, because it allows us to decompose the change in poverty into growth and redistribution components for each group (e.g., regions or sectors) in the economy. We extend our method to include six components and provide an empirical application to the Philippines for the period 1985–2009.


Impact Of Food Inflation On Poverty In The Philippines, Tomoki Fujii Apr 2013

Impact Of Food Inflation On Poverty In The Philippines, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

We simulate the impact of food inflation between June 2006 and June 2008 on poverty across different areas and between agricultural and non-agricultural households. We explicitly treat the spatial heterogeneity in food inflation and the differences in consumption and production patterns across households by merging household expenditure survey and price datasets at the provincial level or lower. Although some of the poor agricultural households may have escaped poverty, the poorest of the poor, whether they are in an agricultural household or not, are severely and adversely affected by the food inflation.


Dynamic Poverty Decomposition Analysis: An Application To The Philippines, Tomoki Fujii Nov 2012

Dynamic Poverty Decomposition Analysis: An Application To The Philippines, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper, we propose a new method of poverty decomposition. Our method remedies the shortcomings of existing methods and has some desirable properties such as time-reversion consistency and subperiod additivity. It integrates the existing methods of growth-redistribution decomposition and sector-based decomposition, because it allows us to decompose poverty change into growth and redistribution components for each group (e.g. regions or sectors) in the economy. We extend our method to have six components and provide an empirical application to the Philippines for the period 1985-2009.


Central Place Theory And City Size Distribution, Wen-Tai Hsu Sep 2012

Central Place Theory And City Size Distribution, Wen-Tai Hsu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper proposes a theory of city size distribution via a hierarchy approach rather than the popular random growth process. It does so by formalizing central place theory using an equilibrium entry model and specifying the conditions under which city size distribution follows a power law. Central place theory describes the way in which a hierarchical city system with different layers of cities serving differently sized market areas is formed from a uniformly populated space. The force driving the city size differences in this model is the heterogeneity in economies of scale across goods. The city size distribution under a …


Growth And Inequality In Singapore, Kong Weng Ho Jul 2012

Growth And Inequality In Singapore, Kong Weng Ho

Research Collection School Of Economics

While the strategy of openness had earned Singapore rapid economic growth, upward social mobility, and possibly decreasing inequality in the early years of development, the more recent years saw increasing inequality and with it an underlying possibly diminished upward intergenerational mobility due to skill-biased growth processes, skill-biased parental influence, liberalization in the education industry, and structural changes in the society which hurt the human capital accumulation of children in families under economic and intra-household stresses. In particular, the paternal influence on educational aspiration and attainment is more pronounced than the mother’s. Non-Chinese and youths from disrupted families are worse off …


Measuring The Upstreamness Of Production And Trade Flows, Pol Antras, Davin Chor, Thibault Fally, Russell Hillbery May 2012

Measuring The Upstreamness Of Production And Trade Flows, Pol Antras, Davin Chor, Thibault Fally, Russell Hillbery

Research Collection School Of Economics

We propose two distinct approaches to the measurement of industry upstreamness (or average distance from final use) and show that they yield an equivalent measure. Furthermore, we provide two additional interpretations of this measure, one of them related to the concept of forward linkages. We construct this measure for 426 industries using the 2002 US input-output Tables. We also construct our measure using data from selected countries in the OECD STAN database. Finally, we present an application of our measure that explores the determinants of the average upstreamness of exports at the country level using trade flows for 2002.


One Mandarin Benefits The Whole Clan: Hometown Infrastructure And Nepotism In An Autocracy, Kieu-Trang Nguyen, Quoc-Anh Do, Anh Tran Jan 2012

One Mandarin Benefits The Whole Clan: Hometown Infrastructure And Nepotism In An Autocracy, Kieu-Trang Nguyen, Quoc-Anh Do, Anh Tran

Research Collection School Of Economics

Duplicate record, see https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/1383. This paper studies nepotism by government officials in an authoritarian regime. We collect a unique dataset of political promotions of officials in Vietnam and estimate their impact on public infrastructure in their hometowns. We find strong positive effects on several outcomes, some with lags, including roads to villages, marketplaces, clean water access, preschools, irrigation, and local radio broadcasters, as well as the hometown’s propensity to benefit from the State’s “poor commune support program”. Nepotism is not limited to only top-level officials, pervasive even among those without direct authority over hometown budgets, stronger when the hometown chairperson’s …


Impact Of Food Inflation On Poverty In The Philippines, Tomoki Fujii Nov 2011

Impact Of Food Inflation On Poverty In The Philippines, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

We simulate the impact of actual food price increase between June 2006 and June 2008 on poverty across different areas and whether the household’s main income source is agricultural activities. We explicitly treat heterogeneity in food price changes and the patterns of consumption and production by merging a expenditure survey dataset and a price dataset at the provincial level or lower. While the increase of head count index is larger for non-agricultural households than agricultural households, the opposite is true for the poverty gap and poverty severity measures, because poor agricultural households are particularly vulnerable to food inflation.


Growth, Opportunity, And Inequality: Some Empirics From Singapore, Kong Weng Ho Jul 2011

Growth, Opportunity, And Inequality: Some Empirics From Singapore, Kong Weng Ho

Research Collection School Of Economics

While the strategy of openness had earned Singapore rapid economic growth, upward social mobility, and possibly decreasing inequality in the early years of development, the more recent years has seen increasing inequality. With this inequality comes an underlying possibly diminished upward inter-generational mobility, due to skill-biased growth processes, skill-biased parental influence, liberalisation in the education industry, and structural changes in the society, which hurt the human capital accumulation of children in families under economic and intra-household stresses. In particular, paternal influence on educational aspirations and attainment is more pronounced than maternal influence. Non-Chinese and youths from disrupted families are worse …


Warning System For Property Bubbles, Jun Yu, Peter C. B. Phillips May 2011

Warning System For Property Bubbles, Jun Yu, Peter C. B. Phillips

Research Collection School Of Economics

A commentary on what constitutes a sound system to warn against property bubbles.


Why It's Vital To Keep Manufacturing Alive, Augustine H. H. Tan Apr 2011

Why It's Vital To Keep Manufacturing Alive, Augustine H. H. Tan

Research Collection School Of Economics

Augustine Tan responds to Singapore Democratic Party candidate Tan Jee Say's online article.


Warning Signs Of Future Asset Bubbles, Peter C. B. Phillips, Jun Yu Apr 2011

Warning Signs Of Future Asset Bubbles, Peter C. B. Phillips, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

Values Survey, we find that individuals with higher levels of schooling, but whose income


Wage Subsidies In A Program For Economic Inclusion And Growth, Hian Teck Hoon Feb 2011

Wage Subsidies In A Program For Economic Inclusion And Growth, Hian Teck Hoon

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper is in three parts. The first part discusses the workings of a wage subsidy scheme in boosting employment and earnings of workers. The second part reviews the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of wage subsidy schemes in countries that have implemented them both as countercyclical policies as well as structural programs to boost long-term earnings and employment of low wage workers. The third part looks at Singapore as a case study of how wage subsidies have been used in a program for generating economic inclusion both in the context of growth as well as in the context of …


Economic Transition, Higher Education And Worker Productivity In China, Belton Fleisher, Yifan Yu, Haizheng Li, Seonghoon Kim Jan 2011

Economic Transition, Higher Education And Worker Productivity In China, Belton Fleisher, Yifan Yu, Haizheng Li, Seonghoon Kim

Research Collection School Of Economics

We investigate the role of education on worker productivity and firms' total factor productivity using a panel of firm-level data from China. We estimate the returns to education by calculating the marginal productivity of workers of different education levels based on estimates of the firm-level production function. We also estimate how the education level of workers and CEO contributes to firms' total factor productivity. Estimated marginal products are much higher than wages, and the gap is larger for highly educated workers. Our estimate shows that an additional year of schooling raises marginal product by 30.1%, and that CEO's education increases …


Comments On “Population Aging And Economic Growth In Asia” By David Bloom, David Canning And Joycelyn Finlay, Roberto S. Mariano Aug 2010

Comments On “Population Aging And Economic Growth In Asia” By David Bloom, David Canning And Joycelyn Finlay, Roberto S. Mariano

Research Collection School Of Economics

No abstract provided.


A Shifting Paradigm And Growth Strategies Reappraisal In Post-Crisis Asia, Winston T.H. Koh Aug 2010

A Shifting Paradigm And Growth Strategies Reappraisal In Post-Crisis Asia, Winston T.H. Koh

Research Collection School Of Economics

The Financial Crisis of 2007 has had far-ranging implications for the global economy. Questions were raised if export-led growth model in Asia has hit the limits. Income growth must be inclusive and sustainable, and to be achieved alongside other goals. Asian economies need to rebalance growth toward greater reliance on domestic and regional demand with a greater emphasis on social and environmental sustainability.


Collaboration Between The Public And Private Sectors For Urban Development, Sock-Yong Phang Mar 2010

Collaboration Between The Public And Private Sectors For Urban Development, Sock-Yong Phang

Research Collection School Of Economics

In market economies, the government acts in many ways. In traditional public finance literature, the government taxes and provides public and merit goods. In addition, it regulates the behaviour of firms and individuals. In the context of market failures such as natural monopoly, high risk situations or long life projects, the government may choose to act as producer. In the past two decades, however, public sector collaboration with the private sector to achieve socio-economic objectives has become widely utilised as a method for the provision of the myriad of services that has come to be expected of governments.


Innovation And Patentability Requirement In A Globalized World, Davin Chor, Edwin L. C. Lai Feb 2010

Innovation And Patentability Requirement In A Globalized World, Davin Chor, Edwin L. C. Lai

Research Collection School Of Economics

One important element of a patent regime is the non-obviousness requirement, which captures the minimum improvement to the best patented technology a new invention is required to make in order for it to be patentable. We call it the required inventive step. We explore the implications of a patenting regime based on required inventive step, by incorporating such intellectual property protection considerations in the quality-improvement model of technology, trade and growth developed by Eaton and Kortum (European Economic Review 2001). In considering whether to increase the inventive step, policy-makers trade off the benefits of a higher rate of innovation against …


Enhancing Income Opportunities, Rashiel Verlarde, Tomoki Fujii, Ulrich Lächler Jan 2010

Enhancing Income Opportunities, Rashiel Verlarde, Tomoki Fujii, Ulrich Lächler

Research Collection School Of Economics

Accelerating growth is essential for poverty reduction. As argued earlier, poverty has failed to decline significantly since the East Asian Crisis due to insufficiently dynamic growth, a high degree of income inequality that reduces the income elasticity of poverty reduction, and an apparent worsening of the income distribution. The first step toward addressing this failure is to accelerate growth, which will not be easy in the short run while the global slowdown continues to run its course. Moreover, even though the global crisis is gradually bottoming out, the post-crisis external environment is likely to be much less favorable than before, …


The National Innovation System Of Singapore, Winston T. H. Koh, Phillip Phan Jan 2010

The National Innovation System Of Singapore, Winston T. H. Koh, Phillip Phan

Research Collection School Of Economics

No abstract provided.


Trade, Growth And Increasing Returns To Infrastructure: The Role Of The Sophisticated Monopolist, Ashok S. Guha, Brishti Guha Nov 2009

Trade, Growth And Increasing Returns To Infrastructure: The Role Of The Sophisticated Monopolist, Ashok S. Guha, Brishti Guha

Research Collection School Of Economics

Equilibrium in international trade with increasing returns in infrastructure depends on whether the infrastructure provider is “naïve” or sophisticated. A monopolist produces infrastructure under decreasing cost using fixed equipment. Unlike similar work, we derive a unique closed-economy equilibrium. In a small open economy, with “naïve” infrastructure provider(s), multiple equilibria obtain. The industrial export potential of the economy depends on unexhausted economies of scale, and equilibria are possible where manufactures are exported despite an autarky price higher than the world price. With a sophisticated infrastructure provider, even an open economy has a unique equilibrium, which, at least as long as economies …


Foreign Direct Investment And Foreign Portfolio Investment Under Asymmetric Information, Ruanjai Suwantaradon Oct 2009

Foreign Direct Investment And Foreign Portfolio Investment Under Asymmetric Information, Ruanjai Suwantaradon

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper develops a model of international capital flows when there is asymmetric information between foreign investors and domestic managers. Direct investors have a direct influence on the management, thus overcoming agency and information problems. This information advantage, however, comes at the cost of having to acquire management expertise. The tradeoff between management costs and the costs of asymmetric information consequently determines the level and composition of a country’s international capital flows. Analyzing how this tradeoff changes with economic conditions in a country, the model can qualitatively capture the experiences of many crisis countries during the 1990s. Specifically, the model …


Analyzing And Forecasting Business Cycles In A Small Open Economy: A Dynamic Factor Model For Singapore, Hwee Kwan Chow, Keen Meng Choy Oct 2009

Analyzing And Forecasting Business Cycles In A Small Open Economy: A Dynamic Factor Model For Singapore, Hwee Kwan Chow, Keen Meng Choy

Research Collection School Of Economics

A dynamic factor model is applied to a large panel dataset of Singapore’s macroeconomic variables and global economic indicators with the initial objective of analysing business cycles in a small open economy. The empirical results suggest that four common factors – which can broadly be interpreted as world, regional, electronics and domestic economic cycles – capture a large proportion of the co-variation in the quarterly time series. The estimated factor model also explains well the observed fluctuations in real economic activity and price inflation, leading us to use it in forecasting Singapore’s business cycles. We find that the forecasts generated …


Study On Singapore's Experience Of Regional Economic Cooperation, John Wong, Kim Song Tan, Yang Mu, Sarah Tong, Tim Seng Lim, Chee Kia Lim Jun 2009

Study On Singapore's Experience Of Regional Economic Cooperation, John Wong, Kim Song Tan, Yang Mu, Sarah Tong, Tim Seng Lim, Chee Kia Lim

Research Collection School Of Economics

Singapore and Hong Kong share many similarities in their growth experiences and challenges. Both were traditionally entrepot economies and service hubs for their hinterlands – China for Hong Kong, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), in general but Malaysia and Indonesia in particular, in the case of Singapore. The two economies have gone through major structural changes over the years in response to changes in the global economy and in their relationships with their respective hinterlands. The changing relationships with their hinterlands play a crucial role in driving their external economic policies.