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Market For Patents, Monopoly, And Misallocation, Shang-Jin Wei, Jianhuan Xu, Ge Yin, Xiaobo Zhang Dec 2023

Market For Patents, Monopoly, And Misallocation, Shang-Jin Wei, Jianhuan Xu, Ge Yin, Xiaobo Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

The paper studies a possible “dark side” of patent trade in enhancing the market power of monopolists. We explore the different effects of China’s 2008 tax reform on patent innovations and sales across industries. In particular, although easier patent trade leads to more patent creation, the new patents are disproportionately connected to existing monopolists and are more likely to be acquired by them. Using an endogenous growth model with patent trade, we show that subsidizing patent trade could skew investors’ research to appeal to the monopolists, increase the latter’s monopoly power, and reduce social welfare. An optimal subsidy policy for …


Common Bubble Detection In Large Dimensional Financial Systems, Ye Chen, Peter C. B. Phillips, Shuping Shi Aug 2023

Common Bubble Detection In Large Dimensional Financial Systems, Ye Chen, Peter C. B. Phillips, Shuping Shi

Research Collection School Of Economics

Price bubbles in multiple assets are sometimes nearly coincident in occurrence. Such near-coincidence is strongly suggestive of co-movement in the associated asset prices and is likely driven by certain factors that are latent in the financial or economic system with common effects across several markets. Can we detect the presence of such common factors at the early stages of their emergence? To answer this question, we build a factor model that includes I(1), mildly explosive, and stationary factors to capture normal, exuberant, and collapsing phases in such phenomena. The I(1) factor models the primary driving force of market fundamentals. The …


Inflation Dynamics And Expectations In Singapore, Hwee Kwan Chow-Tan May 2023

Inflation Dynamics And Expectations In Singapore, Hwee Kwan Chow-Tan

Research Collection School Of Economics

Inflation dynamics in Singapore have primarily been shaped by foreign factors, including global inflationary pressures and external macroeconomic shocks. More recently, the normalisation phase of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis has led to domestic price pressures from pent-up demand and supply-chain disruptions. Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine has resulted in a hike in the global prices of food, energy, and industrial commodities. Using inflation forecasts from the MAS Survey of Professional Forecasters as our measure of inflation expectations, we show that short-term inflation expectations have shifted up recently. Moreover, greater disagreement amongst survey respondents in the more recent surveys suggests individual …


Economic Forecasting In Singapore: The Covid-19 Experience, Hwee Kwan Chow-Tan, Keen Meng Choy Apr 2023

Economic Forecasting In Singapore: The Covid-19 Experience, Hwee Kwan Chow-Tan, Keen Meng Choy

Research Collection School Of Economics

This Special Feature considers how accurately professional forecasters have predicted GDP growth and inflation in Singapore, especially during rare events such as the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and COVID-19. It also illustrates the value of forecast probability distributions in inferring forecasters’ uncertainty when making predictions, and the degree of consensus between projections from different forecasters. The authors find that one-year ahead forecast errors for GDP growth and inflation increased during the GFC and the COVID-19 pandemic. While professional forecasters did not appear to have followed the Government’s forecasts when predicting growth during the GFC, they may have exhibited ”leader-following” behaviour …


High-Dimensional Vars With Common Factors, Ke Miao, Peter C. B. Phillips, Liangjun Su Mar 2023

High-Dimensional Vars With Common Factors, Ke Miao, Peter C. B. Phillips, Liangjun Su

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper studies high-dimensional vector autoregressions (VARs) augmented with common factors that allow for strong cross-sectional dependence. Models of this type provide a convenient mechanism for accommodating the interconnectedness and temporal co-variability that are often present in large dimensional systems. We propose an ℓ1-nuclear-norm regularized estimator and derive the non-asymptotic upper bounds for the estimation errors as well as large sample asymptotics for the estimates. A singular value thresholding procedure is used to determine the correct number of factors with probability approaching one. Both the LASSO estimator and the conservative LASSO estimator are employed to improve estimation precision. The conservative …


The Exchange Rate System Reform In China: Some Important Results, Paul S. L. Yip, Yiu Kuen Tse, Yingjie Dong Aug 2022

The Exchange Rate System Reform In China: Some Important Results, Paul S. L. Yip, Yiu Kuen Tse, Yingjie Dong

Research Collection School Of Economics

We provide a review and empirical study on the exchange rate system reform in China. In the initial stage of the reform the Chinese central bank PBoC's implicit promise of gradual appreciation helped to contain the appreciation rate and volatility of the renminbi. Subsequently, under US pressure for faster appreciation and hence the PBoC's moderate violation of the implicit promise, there was a significant rise in the appreciation rate and the volatility of the renminbi. The moderate violation deteriorated further, forming a vicious cycle of speculative flows and faster exchange rate changes. Upon the onset of the global financial crisis …


Connectedness Of Asia Pacific Forex Markets: China's Growing Influence, Hwee Kwan Chow Jul 2021

Connectedness Of Asia Pacific Forex Markets: China's Growing Influence, Hwee Kwan Chow

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper investigates the degree of connectedness of Asia Pacific forex markets post global financial crisis and relates it to developments in the renminbi markets. The connectedness measure developed by Diebold and Yilmaz (2014) reveal the strength of linkages across the US dollar currency pairs of twelve currencies, namely offshore renminbi, onshore renminbi, euro, yen, Australian dollar, Indian rupee, Korean won, Malaysian ringgit, New Zealand dollar, Singapore dollar, Thai baht and Taiwan dollar. With the gradual liberalization of China’s exchange rate system, shocks from the renminbi markets contribute more to fluctuations in almost all individual Asia Pacific currency markets vis-a-vis …


The Role Of Macroeconomic And Policy Uncertainty In Density Forecast Dispersion, You Li, Anthony S. Tay Mar 2021

The Role Of Macroeconomic And Policy Uncertainty In Density Forecast Dispersion, You Li, Anthony S. Tay

Research Collection School Of Economics

We explore empirically the role of macroeconomic and policy uncertainty in explaining dispersion in professional forecasters’ density forecasts, and in explaining individual forecaster uncertainty (defined as the uncertainty expressed by individual forecasters in their density forecasts). We focus on US real output growth and inflation, using data from the Philadelphia Fed’s quarterly Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF), 1992-2016. We find that dispersion in individual density forecasts is related to macroeconomic uncertainty, especially in longer horizon forecasts, but not policy or forecaster uncertainty. There is also little evidence that forecaster uncertainty reflects macroeconomic or policy uncertainty.


Capital Controls And Macro-Prudential Housing Policies In Small Open Economies, Taojun Xie, Guay C. Lim, Hwee Kwan Chow Sep 2020

Capital Controls And Macro-Prudential Housing Policies In Small Open Economies, Taojun Xie, Guay C. Lim, Hwee Kwan Chow

Research Collection School Of Economics

We evaluate the effects of capital controls and macro-prudential policies in small open economies with a housing sector that is open to foreign ownership. The work is motivated by concerns that foreign investments also respond to housing investment opportunities resulting in potential house price inflation and issues about housing affordability. Our dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model features housing as an internationally traded investment. We also consider macro-prudential policies that are combinations of monetary and fiscal instruments. We investigate whether foreign investments in the housing markets are de-stabilising and whether there are appropriate policy responses to mitigate the negative effects of …


Job Duration And Match Characteristics Over The Business Cycle, Ismail Baydur, Toshihiko Mukoyama Jul 2020

Job Duration And Match Characteristics Over The Business Cycle, Ismail Baydur, Toshihiko Mukoyama

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper studies the cyclical behavior of job separation and the characteristics of matches between workers and jobs. We estimate a proportional hazard model with competing risks, distinguishing between different types of separations. A higher unemployment rate at the start of an employment relationship increases the probability of job-to-job transitions, whereas its effect on employment-to-unemployment transitions is negative. We then build a simple job ladder model to interpret our empirical results. A model with two-dimensional heterogeneity in match (job) characteristics has the same qualitative features as the data. Once the model is extended to include cyclicality in the offered match …


Uncertainty, Depreciation And Industry Growth, Roberto Samaiego, Juliana Yu Sun Nov 2019

Uncertainty, Depreciation And Industry Growth, Roberto Samaiego, Juliana Yu Sun

Research Collection School Of Economics

When investment is irreversible, firms invest only when the mismatch between their productivity and their capital stock is large. This suggests that two factors should be related to the frequency of mismatch: volatility and capital depreciation. A canonical model of industry dynamics with investment irreversibility displays slow growth in times of high uncertainty, and decline is particularly pronounced in industries where capital depreciation is rapid. A differences-in-differences regression using industry growth data from a large sample of countries supports this result.


A Demand And Supply Game Exploring Global Supply Chains, Bei Hong Nov 2019

A Demand And Supply Game Exploring Global Supply Chains, Bei Hong

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this article, the author describes a classroom experiment in which participants make decisions to achieve the lowest-cost production. Student volunteers acting as smartphone companies are provided with confidential information representing their own cost of production and are asked to make trade decisions to form a supply chain at the lowest possible cost. This interactive classroom experiment facilitates an understanding and appreciation of the basic demand and supply model. Students also explore the motivations, facilitators, and impediments of global supply chains. Suggestions are made to expand the game by incorporating more sophisticated models of the global supply chain, and also …


Industrial Output Fluctuations In Developing Countries: General Equilibrium Consequences Of Agricultural Productivity Shocks, Iona Hyojung Lee Feb 2018

Industrial Output Fluctuations In Developing Countries: General Equilibrium Consequences Of Agricultural Productivity Shocks, Iona Hyojung Lee

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper shows that a negative shock to agricultural productivity may increase food prices, and labor and capital can move away from manufacturing into agriculture to meet the subsistence requirement for food. This effect depends on income levels and openness to trade. Using annual manufacturing data and rainfall shocks as the instrument for crop yields (proxy for agricultural productivity), I find that an exogenous decline in yield decreases manufacturing output as well as employment and capital investment in manufacturing. Overall, crop yield variation can explain up to 44% of industrial output fluctuations in developing countries (rainfall shocks cause 31% of …


The Role Of Macroeconomic, Policy, And Forecaster Uncertainty In Forecast Dispersion, You Li, Anthony S. Tay Nov 2017

The Role Of Macroeconomic, Policy, And Forecaster Uncertainty In Forecast Dispersion, You Li, Anthony S. Tay

Research Collection School Of Economics

We explore the role of uncertainty in explaining dispersion in professional forecasters’ density forecasts of real output growth and inflation. We consider three separate notions of uncertainty: general macroeconomic uncertainty (the fact that macroeconomic variables are easier to forecast at some times than at others), policy uncertainty, and forecaster uncertainty. We find that dispersion in individual density forecasts is related to overall macroeconomic uncertainty and policy uncertainty, while forecaster uncertainty (which we define as the average in the uncertainty expressed by individual forecasters) appears to have little role in forecast dispersion.


Growing Through The Merger And Acquisition, Jianhuan Xu Jul 2017

Growing Through The Merger And Acquisition, Jianhuan Xu

Research Collection School Of Economics

The paper studies with an endogenous growth model how the merger and acquisition (M&A) affects the aggregate growth rate. We model the M&A as a capital reallocation process, which can increase both productivity and growth rates of firms. The model is tractable and greatly consistent with patterns observed in the M&A at the micro level. Matching our model to the data, we find that prohibiting the M&A would lead to the reduction of the aggregate growth rate of US economy by 0.1% and the reduction of the aggregate TFP by 5%.


Monetary Policy And Energy Price Shocks, Bao Tan Huynh May 2017

Monetary Policy And Energy Price Shocks, Bao Tan Huynh

Research Collection School Of Economics

A New Keynesian framework with endogenous energy production is proposed to investigate the role of monetary policy in addressing disturbances in energy markets. The novelty of the model lies in the endogenous production of energy with convex costs, explicit modeling of goods with different degrees of energy-dependency and sectoral price rigidities. Our analyses prescribe the desirable monetary responses to four types of energy price shocks, highlighting the distinct characteristics of each shock and affirming the need for diverse policy considerations. We also found several points of divergence in relation to previous studies on addressing energy supply shocks. In addition, we …


Comments On “Rich Debt, Poor Debt: Assessing Household Indebtedness And Debt Repayment Capacity”, Sock Yong Phang Jan 2017

Comments On “Rich Debt, Poor Debt: Assessing Household Indebtedness And Debt Repayment Capacity”, Sock Yong Phang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper assesses the system-wide impacts of Malaysia’s rising household debt.Malaysia’s household debt-to-GDP ratio (HDGR) increased from 76% in 2009 to 89%in 2016. This increase has raised concerns regarding the implications for householdfinancial resilience and banking system stability. The paper uses a micro-level datasetthat integrates income and debt to calculate financial margin (FM) and the probabilityof default (PD) for individuals at the baseline, and when subject to various shocks.This allows the estimation of loss to lenders in the event of default, and from there,the banking system’s debt-at-risk. The findings show that default is more likely forhouseholds with a debt service …


Comments On “Rich Debt, Poor Debt: Assessing Household Indebtedness And Debt Repayment Capacity”, Sock Yong Phang Jan 2017

Comments On “Rich Debt, Poor Debt: Assessing Household Indebtedness And Debt Repayment Capacity”, Sock Yong Phang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper assesses the system-wide impacts of Malaysia’s rising household debt.Malaysia’s household debt-to-GDP ratio (HDGR) increased from 76% in 2009 to 89%in 2016. This increase has raised concerns regarding the implications for householdfinancial resilience and banking system stability. The paper uses a micro-level datasetthat integrates income and debt to calculate financial margin (FM) and the probabilityof default (PD) for individuals at the baseline, and when subject to various shocks.This allows the estimation of loss to lenders in the event of default, and from there,the banking system’s debt-at-risk. The findings show that default is more likely forhouseholds with a debt service …


Worker Selection, Hiring, And Vacancies, Ismail Baydur Jan 2017

Worker Selection, Hiring, And Vacancies, Ismail Baydur

Research Collection School Of Economics

The ratio of hirings to vacancies in the U.S. has the following establishment level properties: (i) it steeply rises with employment growth rate; (ii) falls with establishment size; and (iii) rises with worker turnover rate. The standard Diamond-Mortensen Pissarides (DMP) matching model is not compatible with these observations. This paper augments selection of workers prior to hiring into a random matching model with multi-worker firms. In the calibrated model, worker selection accounts for about 30% of the variation in the hiring-vacancy ratio observed in the data. Compared to the standard model, the worker selection model has both qualitative and quantitative …


Invitation Strategy For Cutting Edge Industries Through Mncs And Global Talents: The Case Of Singapore, Kim Song Tan Nov 2016

Invitation Strategy For Cutting Edge Industries Through Mncs And Global Talents: The Case Of Singapore, Kim Song Tan

Research Collection School Of Economics

Singapore presents an interesting case of how a country achieves dynamic economic development and innovation through the "invitation" strategy of a business hub. Despite being a small city-state with limited domestic market size and no meaningful hinterland or natural resources to speak of, Singapore has managed to transform its economy dramatically over the past 50 years by leveraging the strengths of other economies. Specifically, it has been able to attract (or "invite") various types of productive resources, including foreign capital, foreign technology and foreign workers (both skilled and unskilled) to make up for what it lacks. This has helped Singapore …


Energy Price Shocks And External Balances, Bao Tan Huynh May 2016

Energy Price Shocks And External Balances, Bao Tan Huynh

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper studies the impact of a wide set of energy price shocks on exter- nal balances using a two-country framework comprising multiple sectors and en- dogenous energy production with convex costs. The paper disentangles different demand and supply shocks in the energy market through their distinct impact on external balances. It provides a theoretical confirmation of Kilian et al. (2009) and a theoretical foundation to the determining role of the non-energy trade balance in the transmission of energy price shocks. The presence of durables also highlights the immediate channel through which energy prices impact the non-energy trade balance.


Investment-Specific Technical Change And Growth Around The World, Roberto M. Samaniego, Juliana Yu Sun Apr 2016

Investment-Specific Technical Change And Growth Around The World, Roberto M. Samaniego, Juliana Yu Sun

Research Collection School Of Economics

Investment-specific technical change (ISTC) contributes little to growth in most countries. This is because in many countries the investment process does not become notably more efficient over time. Still, cross-country differences in the contribution of ISTC to growth are significant. Differences in the rate of ISTC appear due to cross-country variation in the use of R&D intensive capital goods, as well as trade costs.


Macroeconomic Effects Of Energy Price Shocks On The Business Cycle, Bao Tan Huynh Apr 2016

Macroeconomic Effects Of Energy Price Shocks On The Business Cycle, Bao Tan Huynh

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper proposes a framework of endogenous energy production with convex costs to investigate the general equilibrium effects of energy price shocks on the business cycle. This framework explicitly models the consumption of durables and nondurables and implements a high complementarity between energy and the usage of durables and capital. The model predicts energy price elasticities of various consumption variables that fall within reasonable agreement with empirical estimates. Convex costs in energy production produce energy price and energy supply dynamics that tallies well with empirical behavior. Our analysis confirms in a theoretical setting recent observations that not all energy price …


Impact Of International Remittances On Schooling In The Philippines: Does The Relationship To The Household Head Matter?, Tomoki Fujii Sep 2015

Impact Of International Remittances On Schooling In The Philippines: Does The Relationship To The Household Head Matter?, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

We study the impact of international remittances on schooling in the Philippines, taking into account the school-age individual's relationship to the household head. This consideration is important because employment opportunities abroad may be taken at the expense of the quality of child rearing. Our estimation results indicate that there are, indeed, significant negative guardian effects on school attendance and education expenditures when children with overseas parents are looked after by a relative other than a parent or grandparent. However, these negative effects tend to be outweighed by the positive impact of remittance flows from overseas.


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 …


Predictability Of Exchange Rates With Taylor Rule Fundamentals: Evidence From Inflation-Targeting Emerging Countries, Joseph D. Alba, Donghyun Park, Taojun Xie Jul 2015

Predictability Of Exchange Rates With Taylor Rule Fundamentals: Evidence From Inflation-Targeting Emerging Countries, Joseph D. Alba, Donghyun Park, Taojun Xie

Research Collection School Of Economics

We investigate the out-of-sample predictability of U.S. dollar exchange rates with Taylor rule fundamentals in thirteen emerging countries with inflation-targeting monetary policy regimes. We find some evidence of out-of-sample exchange rate predictability for Brazil, Czech Republic, Hungary, Philippines, Thailand, and South Africa. Plots of the coefficients of U.S. inflation and Philippine inflation predict the direction of the U.S. dollar-Philippine peso exchange rates to be opposite to that predicted by the Taylor principle.


China's Yuan: Asia's Future Anchor Currency?, Hwee Kwan Chow Apr 2015

China's Yuan: Asia's Future Anchor Currency?, Hwee Kwan Chow

Research Collection School Of Economics

The yuan is becoming more widely used in pricing and settling intra-regional trade and investment. Asian currencies' movements are likely to shift more in tandem with the yuan, leading to it becoming one of Asia's lead currencies. Singapore is now the world's second-most- important offshore yuan trading hub after Hong Kong.


Aggregate Consumption And Debt Accumulation: An Empirical Examination Of Us Household Behavior, Yun K. Kim, Mark Setterfield, Yuan Mei Jan 2015

Aggregate Consumption And Debt Accumulation: An Empirical Examination Of Us Household Behavior, Yun K. Kim, Mark Setterfield, Yuan Mei

Research Collection School Of Economics

The outbreak of the financial crisis in 2008 witnessed a significant contraction in US consumption spending, as households began deleveraging following a period marked by historically high levels of household borrowing. These events call into question the canonical life-cycle theory of consumption, with its benign view of debt as a neutral instrument of optimal intertemporal expenditure smoothing. This paper draws attention to an alternative, post-Keynesian account of consumption spending in which current income, household borrowing and household indebtedness all affect current consumption. Central to the analysis is an empirical investigation of US consumption spending since the 1950s. The results of …


A Theory Of Aggregate Consumption, Yun K. Kim, Mark Setterfield, Yuan Mei Apr 2014

A Theory Of Aggregate Consumption, Yun K. Kim, Mark Setterfield, Yuan Mei

Research Collection School Of Economics

We develop a Keynesian model of aggregate consumption. Our theory emphasizes the importance of the relative income hypothesis and debt finance for understanding household consumption behavior. It is shown that particular importance attaches to how net debtor households service their debts, and that the treatment of debt-servicing commitments as a substitute for savings by these households creates the potential for 'sudden stops' in consumption spending (and hence aggregate demand).


Minimum Investment Requirement, Financial Integration And Economic (In)Stability: A Refinement To Matsuyama (2004), Haiping Zhang Dec 2013

Minimum Investment Requirement, Financial Integration And Economic (In)Stability: A Refinement To Matsuyama (2004), Haiping Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This note proposes a simple, more precise, necessary condition for symmetry breaking in Matsuyama (Financial Market Globalization, Symmetry-Breaking, and Endogenous Inequality of Nations, Econometrica, 2004 ), i.e., the positive interest rate response to income changes, which essentially arises from the assumptions of financial frictions and minimum investment size requirement of individual projects. This condition also holds under the more general settings. Thus, this note o ers an empirically testable hypothesis, i.e., Matsuyama's symmetry breaking is more likely, if the interest rate response to income changes is positive and sufficiently large.