Asian Studies Commons^™

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-revision 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 out method to have six components and provide empirical application to the Philippines for the period of 1985 to 2009.

Volatility Spillovers And Linkages In Asian Stock Markets, Hwee Kwan Chow

Research Collection School Of Economics

Diebold–Yilmaz spillover indexes are computed for weekly return volatilities based on daily benchmark stock indexes of the US, the UK, and 10 Asian countries. We found (i) the strengthening of overall volatility spillovers is not a temporary surge but persisted after the crisis; (ii) the susceptibility of individual Asian stock markets to inward volatility transfers is linked to its degree of openness; and (iii) the Asian bourses are becoming more important emitters of financial shocks since the crisis. Rolling regressions on volatility linkages reveal the relative dominance of the US over the Japanese and Chinese bourses, and the level of …

Cultural Preferences In International Trade: Evidence From The Globalization Of Korean Pop Culture, Pao-Li Chang, Iona Hyojung Lee

Research Collection School Of Economics

The Korean pop culture (TVdramas and K-pop music) has grown immensely popular across the globe over thepast two decades. This paper analyzes its impacts on international trade. We compilea cross-country panel dataset of South Korea's TV show exports to over 150countries for the period of 1998{2014. These variations in exposure to Koreanpop cultures are used to identify changes in consumer preferences for Koreanmerchandise across time, countries, and products (at the HS 4-digit level).First, we find that more Korean TV show exports significantly increase Koreanexports of goods for women, while the effects are much smaller on men'smerchandise. This strongly supports the …

A New Toolkit For Thailand 4.0, Abhisit Vejjajiva, Philip Charles Zerrillo

Asian Management Insights

The Prime Minister of Thailand from 2008 to 2011 and the current leader of the Democrat Party, Abhisit Vejjajiva, addresses the challenges facing the Thai economy today, in this interview with Philip Zerrillo.

The Sustainability Edge: Driving Top-Line Growth With Triple-Bottom-Line Thinking, Jagdish Sheth, Suhas Apte

Asian Management Insights

How to drive top-line growth with triple-bottom-line thinking.

The Flow Of Funds In Asean, Philip C. Zerrillo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In his novel, Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden wrote, “Water can carve its way even through stone. And when trapped, water makes a new path.” Something similar seems to be happening with the flow of funds in ASEAN.

Urban Rail Transit Ppps: Lessons From East Asian Cities, Zheng Chang, Sock Yong Phang

Research Collection School Of Economics

Private sector participation in urban rail transit has proliferated in the past two decades. The large metropolises of East Asia have had decades of experience with private sector participation in the provision of heavy metro services. The design of these public–private partnerships (PPP) are varied. The diverse experiences of Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore and Beijing contain valuable lessons for other cities. Using a case study approach, this paper discusses three features of urban rail transitdevelopments in the context of East Asian cities, viz., farebox recovery, land value capture mechanisms, and vertical structure of the industry. Super vertical integration between rail …

Volatility Spillovers And Linkages In Asian Stock Markets, Hwee Kwan Chow-Tan

Research Collection School Of Economics

Diebold-Yilmaz spilloverindexes are computed for weekly return volatilities based on daily benchmarkstock indexes of US, UK and ten Asian countries. We found (i) the strengthening ofoverall volatility spillovers is not a temporary surge but persisted after thecrisis; (ii) the susceptibility ofindividual Asian stock markets to inward volatility transfers is linked to itsdegree of openness; and (iii) the Asian bourses are becoming more importantemitters of financial shocks since the crisis. Rolling regressions on volatilitylinkages reveal the relative dominance of the US over the Japanese and Chinesebourses, and the level of influence on Asian stock markets from the Chinesebourse has risen to …

China’S Growth Story: Plenty To Come, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

The Middle Kingdom has lots of room to grow if it could sort out economic distortions and optimise capital allocation. The tweaking of the one-child policy might also help

Fertility And Rural Electrification In Bangladesh, Tomoki Fujii, Abu S. Shonchoy

Research Collection School Of Economics

We use a household-level panel dataset from Bangladesh to examine the household-level relationship between fertility and the access to electricity. We find that the household's access to electricity reduces the change in the number of children by about 0.1 to 0.25 children in a period of five years in most estimates. This finding also applies to retrospective panel data and is robust to the choice of covariates and estimation methods. Our finding passes falsification test and corroborates with the predictions of our theoretical model on the households' time use and consumption pattern.

Trump And Asia, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

The American president is off to an uncertain start in his first 100 days in office but his administration could yet develop a coherent foreign policy

The Revival Of The Philippine Economy, Cesar V. Purisima, Philip Charles Zerrillo

Asian Management Insights

The former Secretary of Finance for the Philippines and Chair of the Economic Development Cluster from 2010 to 2016, Cesar V. Purisima, talks about the turning around of the Philippine economy and restoring investor confidence, in this interview with Philip Zerrillo.

Harnessing The Youth Bulge, Sarah Harper

Asian Management Insights

How Asia can take advantage of its changing age composition.

Singapore’S Life Program: Actuarial Framework, Longevity Risk And Impact Of Annuity Fund Return, Koon Shing Kwong, Yiu Kuen Tse, Wai-Sum Chan

Research Collection School Of Economics

The Central Provident Fund (CPF) is a defined-contribution savings plan forming the key pillar of the pension system in Singapore. The CPF Lifelong Income For the Elderly (LIFE) program, which provides lifetime income for retirees, is a mandatory pension scheme for all Singapore residents. In this paper we construct an actuarial framework to analyze the LIFE program. We use this framework to study the plan payout outcomes with respect to changes in mortality and annuity fund return assumptions. We also examine the effects of some possible changes in the program on the payouts and bequests.

East Asia Pacific Economies: Looking Good, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

The World Bank expects recovering global trade and commodity prices to buoy regional prospects

Enhancing Singapore’S Pension Scheme: A Blueprint For Further Flexibility, Koon Shing Kwong, Yiu Kuen Tse, Wai Sum Chan

Research Collection School of Economics

Building a social security system to ensure Singapore residents have peace of mind in funding for retirement has been at the top of Singapore government’s policy agenda over the last decade. Implementation of the Lifelong Income For the Elderly (LIFE) scheme in 2009 clearly shows that the government spares no effort in improving its pension scheme to boost its residents’ income after retirement. Despite the recent modifications to the LIFE scheme, Singapore residents must still choose between two plans: the Standard and Basic plans. To enhance the flexibility of the LIFE scheme with further streamlining of its fund management, we …

Weak Law V Strong Ties: An Empirical Study Of Business Investment, Law And Political Connections In China, Wei Zhang, Ji Li

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Based on a large-scale survey of Chinese entrepreneurs, our study explores how institutions (formal and informal) influence investment decisions made by private companies. The study finds that, consistent with the conventional view, a more effective legal system is correlated with short-term general investment, and that the judiciary is important mainly because of its restraint over the state. The role of effective courts, however, diminishes when private entrepreneurs consider making long-term investment. We find a positive association between the entrepreneurs’ political backgrounds and their R&D investment, suggesting that Chinese courts, in spite of decades of reform, are not yet viewed as …

Determinants Of Urban Land Supply In China: How Do Political Factors Matter?, Wen-Tai Hsu, Xiaolu Li, Yang Tang, Jing Wu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper explores two political factors for their potential effects on urban land supply in China: corruption, and competition for promotion. We find that standard urban economic predictions hold in the sense that both population and income increases are strongly significant determinants for the increase in urban land supply. Conditional on these demand-side factors, we find that the usage of two-stage auctions (as a proxy for corruption) is highly correlated with the increase in land supply. The corruption effects are strongest for commercial land, followed by residential land and then industrial land. To shed light on the competition motives among …

Decoding Chinese Foreign Policy, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

States need to understand Beijing’s practice of ‘false dilemmas’ and its revanchist narrative, and stand firm without provoking China unnecessarily

Jobs For Justice(S): Corruption In The Supreme Court Of India, Madhav S. Aney, Shubhankar Dam, Giovanni Ko

Research Collection School Of Economics

We investigate whether judicial decisions are affected by career concerns of judges byanalysing two questions: Do judges respond to pandering incentives by ruling in favourof the government in the hope of receiving jobs after retiring from the Court? Does thegovernment actually reward judges who ruled in its favour with prestigious jobs? To answerthese questions we construct a dataset of all Supreme Court of India cases involving thegovernment from 1999 till 2014, with an indicator for whether the decision was in its favouror not. We find that pandering incentives have a causal effect on judicial decision-making.The exposure of a judge to …

Determinants Of Urban Land Supply In People's Republic Of China: How Do Political Factors Matter?, Wen-Tai Hsu, Xiaolu Li, Yang Tang, Jing Wu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper explores whether and how corruption and competition-for-promotion motives affect urban land supply in the People's Republic of China. Conditional on demand-side factors, we find that corruption is highly correlated with an increase in land supply. The corruption effects are strongest for commercial land, followed by residential land, and then industrial land. To shed light on the competition motives among prefectural leaders, we examine how the number of years in office affects land supply and distinguish among different hypotheses. Our empirical results show robust rising trends in land sales. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that among prefectural …

Dissecting A Giant: The Commodification Of Rural China, Singapore Management University

Research@SMU: Connecting the Dots

Rapid growth is causing unprecedented transformations in the social fabric and market structure of rural China, Professors Forrest Zhang and John Donaldson, researchers at SMU investigate.

See the papers:

• Class differentiation in rural China: Dynamics of accumulation, commodification and state intervention;
• Political dynamics in land commodification: Commodifying rural land development rights in Chengdu, China
• The rise of agrarian capitalism with Chinese characteristics: Agricultural modernization, agribusiness and collective land rights
• China's agrarian reform and the privatization of land: A contrarian view

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 …