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Bubbly Booms And Welfare, Feng Dong, Yang Jiao, Haoning Sun Jul 2024

Bubbly Booms And Welfare, Feng Dong, Yang Jiao, Haoning Sun

Research Collection School Of Economics

We show the competing effects of a housing bubble on the real economy by developing a multi-sector dynamic model with housing production. On the one hand, firms can sell or collateralize their housing, so a housing bubble helps firms obtain credit to finance their investment and expand production. On the other hand, a boom in the housing sector crowds out labor in the non-housing sector. We show that housing booms can reduce social welfare both in the steady state and in the transitional dynamics only when the production externalities in the non-housing sector are sufficiently large. We quantitatively evaluate our …


Housing Fever In Australia 2020-23: Insights From An Econometric Thermometer, Shuping Shi, Peter C. B. Phillips Sep 2023

Housing Fever In Australia 2020-23: Insights From An Econometric Thermometer, Shuping Shi, Peter C. B. Phillips

Research Collection School Of Economics

Australian housing markets experienced widespread and, in some cases, extraordinary growth in prices between 2020 and 2023. Using recently developed methodology that accounts for fundamental economic drivers, we assess the existence and degree of speculative behaviour, as well as the timing of exuberance and downturns in these markets. Our findings indicate that speculative behaviour was indeed present in six of the eight capital cities at some time over the period studied. The sequence of events in this nation-wide housing bubble began in the Brisbane market and concluded in Melbourne, Canberra, and Hobart following the interest rate rise implemented by the …


Disagreement In Market Index Options, Guilherme Salome, George Tauchen, Jia Li Jun 2023

Disagreement In Market Index Options, Guilherme Salome, George Tauchen, Jia Li

Research Collection School Of Economics

We generate new evidence on disagreement among traders in the S&P 500 options market from high-frequency intraday price and volume data. Inference on disagreement is based on a model where investors observe public information but agree to disagree on its interpretation; disagreement among investors is captured by the volume–volatility elasticity. For options, there are two natural variables related to disagreement: moneyness and tenor, which we relate to disagreement about the distribution of the market index at different quantiles and times. The estimated volume–volatility elasticity equals unity for options near the money and close to expiration, which is consistent with the …


What, Why And How Financial Development Matters: Evidence Of Asean-5, Asia-5 And Oecd-7 Economies, Swee Liang Tan Jul 2022

What, Why And How Financial Development Matters: Evidence Of Asean-5, Asia-5 And Oecd-7 Economies, Swee Liang Tan

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper analyzed the association between bank and capital markets financial development with income per capita in three regions; ASEAN-5 economies (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia), Asia-5 (Japan, China, Hong Kong SAR, South Korea, and India), and OECD-7 (Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, UK, and US) from 2000 to 2017 using panel data regressions. A key lesson ASEAN-5 can learn from Asia-5 and OECD-7 experience is that bank size does matter despite digital disruptions to their banking system; yet large financial structure that favors banks is negatively associated with Asia-5, and importantly, efficient banking system (not bank size alone) is …


Vat Treatment Of The Financial Services: Implications For The Real Economy, Ismail Baydur, Fatih Yilmaz Dec 2021

Vat Treatment Of The Financial Services: Implications For The Real Economy, Ismail Baydur, Fatih Yilmaz

Research Collection School Of Economics

Financial institutions are exempt from the value-added tax (VAT) in most countries. We develop a general equilibrium model with endogenous firm entry and a banking sector to accommodate three key distortions related to exempt treatment: (i) self-supply bias in the banking sector, (ii) under-taxation of payment services, and (iii) input distortions in the business sector and tax cascading. We calibrate our model to the average of Germany, France, and the UK data. Our results show that repealing exempt treatment always increases tax revenues. However, welfare gains occur only at low VAT rates due to the hump-shaped VAT Laffer curve.


Informal Institutions And Comparative Advantage Of South-Based Mnes: Theory And Evidence, Pao-Li Chang, Yuting Chen Jan 2021

Informal Institutions And Comparative Advantage Of South-Based Mnes: Theory And Evidence, Pao-Li Chang, Yuting Chen

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper builds a theory based on “informal institutions” to characterize the comparative advantage of South-based MNEs. MNEs headquartered in countries with poorer state institutions are shown to endogenously invest more in firm-specific institutional capital to compensate for the lack of state institutions, and as an optimal response, undertake FDI in countries with weaker institutions. We conduct an extensive test of the theory using worldwide firm-level greenfield FDI flows during 2009–2016, employing (among others) variations in the interaction of prevalence of informal institutions at home and state institutional qualities of host countries, as well as heterogeneity across sectors and firms …


Estimating The Benefits And Costs Of Forming Business Partnerships, Jungho Lee Jun 2020

Estimating The Benefits And Costs Of Forming Business Partnerships, Jungho Lee

Research Collection School Of Economics

I estimate a matching model of business‐partnership formation to quantify the relative importance of productivity gains, financing gains, and the coordination failure of effort provision (moral hazard) among partners. Productivity gains account for 61% of the gain from the observed partnerships. For partners in the first quartile of the wealth distribution, however, financing accounts for 93% of the gain. The cost of moral hazard corresponds to 42% of the entire gain from partnerships. A loan policy specifically targeting partnerships is less effective in improving welfare than a conventional loan policy that provides loans to individual entrepreneurs.


Forecasting Realized Volatility Using A Nonnegative Semiparametric Model, Anders Eriksson, Daniel P. A. Preve, Jun Yu Sep 2019

Forecasting Realized Volatility Using A Nonnegative Semiparametric Model, Anders Eriksson, Daniel P. A. Preve, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper introduces a parsimonious and yet flexible semiparametric model to forecastfinancial volatility. The new model extends a related linear nonnegative autoregressive modelpreviously used in the volatility literature by way of a power transformation. It is semiparametric inthe sense that the distributional and functional form of its error component is partially unspecified.The statistical properties of the model are discussed and a novel estimation method is proposed.Simulation studies validate the new method and suggest that it works reasonably well in finitesamples. The out-of-sample forecasting performance of the proposed model is evaluated against anumber of standard models, using data on S&P 500 …


Marginal Cost Of Risk-Based Capital And Risk-Taking, Tao Chen, Jing Rong Goh, Shinichi Kamiya, Pingyi Lou Jun 2019

Marginal Cost Of Risk-Based Capital And Risk-Taking, Tao Chen, Jing Rong Goh, Shinichi Kamiya, Pingyi Lou

Research Collection School Of Economics

We explore the impact of capital adequacy requirements on financial institutions' risk-taking behavior from a novel perspective. Specifically, we show that an important feature of the risk-based capital (RBC) system a built-in diversification benefit in aggregating risk categories induces moral hazard. We find that insurers that face lower marginal RBC costs of fixed-income (FI) investment tend to purchase riskier Fl securities. This relationship holds even when lower marginal RBC costs result from increased risk in other risk categories, which is an unintended consequence of the RBC's square root rule. Using Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy as exogenous shocks to the RBC …


Actuarial Modeling And Analysis Of The Hong Kong Life Annuity Scheme, Koon Shing Kwong, Wai-Sum Chan, Johnny Siu-Hang Li Mar 2019

Actuarial Modeling And Analysis Of The Hong Kong Life Annuity Scheme, Koon Shing Kwong, Wai-Sum Chan, Johnny Siu-Hang Li

Research Collection School Of Economics

The Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation (HKMC) Limited, which was established in March 1997 and is wholly owned by the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, has a major mission to develop and provide different financial retirement instruments to Hong Kong residents to help address the income poverty of retirees. In June 2017, HKMC Annuity Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the HKMC was incorporated to implement a new life annuity scheme which would be launched by mid-2018 to cater for the needs of cash-rich Hong Kong old age residents. The objective of the scheme is to provide an additional …


Financial Sector In Singapore, Hwee Kwan Chow, Sai Fan Pei Jan 2019

Financial Sector In Singapore, Hwee Kwan Chow, Sai Fan Pei

Research Collection School Of Economics

This chapter reviews the financial development strategies adopted by the Singapore government as it navigates internal and external changes to build a vibrant center of finance in the Asia Pacific region. Sections 2 and 3 provide an overview of the structure of the financial system and the financial governance framework respectively. This is followed by a discussion, in Section 4, on the outward looking development strategy that underpinned the successful development of Singapore’s financial sector. Section 5 highlights the reforms undertaken in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis that led to the building of a well-diversified and thriving international …


The Impact Of The Cost Of Car Ownership On House Price Gradient In Singapore, Naqun Huang, Jing Li, Amanda Ross Jan 2018

The Impact Of The Cost Of Car Ownership On House Price Gradient In Singapore, Naqun Huang, Jing Li, Amanda Ross

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper examines the extent to which a change in the cost of car ownership affects the house price gradient with respect to distance from the central business district (CBD). Theory suggests that if the cost of car ownership increases, then people will shift towards other modes of transportation, thus reducing house prices farther away from the CBD. However, the cost of car ownership is likely to be endogenous and correlated with various unobserved factors that also contribute to a change in the house price gradient. To obtain causal effects, we exploit a unique feature of Singapore’s car registration process. …


Vat Treatment Of Financial Institutions, Ismail Baydur, Fatih Yilmaz Feb 2017

Vat Treatment Of Financial Institutions, Ismail Baydur, Fatih Yilmaz

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper studies the effects of exempt treatment of financial services under a VATsystem. We develop a general equilibrium model with elastic labor supply, endogenous entry, anda banking sector. The banking sector provides loan services to producers and payment servicesto consumers. Our model display three key distortions under exempt treatment: (i) self-supplybias in the banking sector, (ii) consumption distortions, (iii) input distortions and tax cascading.Then, we calibrate our model to match the salient features of the tax system EU countries. Atax neutral policy regime switch from exempt treatment to full-taxation in loan services improveswelfare about 4%. Shutting down the entry …


Self-Exciting Jumps, Learning, And Asset Pricing Implications, Andras Fulop, Junye Li, Jun Yu Mar 2015

Self-Exciting Jumps, Learning, And Asset Pricing Implications, Andras Fulop, Junye Li, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

The paper proposes a self-exciting asset pricing model that takes into account co-jumps between prices and volatility and self-exciting jump clustering. We employ a Bayesian learning approach to implement real-time sequential analysis. We find evidence of self-exciting jump clustering since the 1987 market crash, and its importance becomes more obvious at the onset of the 2008 global financial crisis. We also find that learning affects the tail behaviors of the return distributions and has important implications for risk management, volatility forecasting, and option pricing.


Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind: The Value Of Political Connections In Social Networks, Quoc-Anh Do, Yen Teik Lee, Bang Dang Nguyen, Kieu-Trang Nguyen May 2012

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind: The Value Of Political Connections In Social Networks, Quoc-Anh Do, Yen Teik Lee, Bang Dang Nguyen, Kieu-Trang Nguyen

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper investigates the impact of social-network based political connections on firm value. We focus on the networks of university classmates and alumni among directors of U.S. public firms and congressmen. Comparing firms connected to elected versus defeated politicians in the Regression Discontinuity Design of close elections from 2000 to 2008, we provide evidence that political connections enhance firm value. However, the value of political connections varies in a more complex way than expected. While connections to powerful members of the Senate generate strong positive impact on firm value, connections to newly elected congressmen are less valuable to firms than …


Off The Cliff And Back? Credit Conditions And International Trade During The Global Financial Crisis, Davin Chor, Manova Kalina May 2012

Off The Cliff And Back? Credit Conditions And International Trade During The Global Financial Crisis, Davin Chor, Manova Kalina

Research Collection School Of Economics

We examine the collapse of international trade flows during the 2008-2009 global financial crisis using detailed data on the evolution of monthly U.S. imports over the November 2006 - April 2009 period. We show that credit constraints and the reduction in the availability of external capital were an important channel through which the crisis affected trade volumes. We identify the effects of credit tightening by exploiting the variation in the cost of capital across countries and over time, as well as the variation in financial dependence across sectors. We find that countries with higher interbank interest rates and thus tighter …


Dating The Timeline Of Financial Bubbles During The Subprime Crisis, Peter C. B. Phillips, Jun Yu Nov 2011

Dating The Timeline Of Financial Bubbles During The Subprime Crisis, Peter C. B. Phillips, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

A new recursive regression methodology is introduced to analyze the bubble characteristics of various financial time series during the subprime crisis. The methods modify a technique proposed in Phillips, Wu, and Yu (2011) and provide a technology for identifying bubble behavior with consistent dating of their origination and collapse. The tests serve as an early warning diagnostic of bubble activity and a new procedure is introduced for testing bubble migration across markets. Three relevant financial series are investigated, including a financial asset price (a house price index), a commodity price (the crude oil price), and one bond price (the spread …


Explosive Behavior In The 1990s Nasdaq: When Did Exuberance Escalate Asset Values?, Peter C. B. Phillips, Yangru Wu, Jun Yu Feb 2011

Explosive Behavior In The 1990s Nasdaq: When Did Exuberance Escalate Asset Values?, Peter C. B. Phillips, Yangru Wu, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

A recursive test procedure is suggested that provides a mechanism for testing explosive behavior, date stamping the origination and collapse of economic exuberance, and providing valid confidence intervals for explosive growth rates. The method involves the recursive implementation of a right-side unit root test and a sup test, both of which are easy to use in practical applications, and some new limit theory for mildly explosive processes. The test procedure is shown to have discriminatory power in detecting periodically collapsing bubbles, thereby overcoming a weakness in earlier applications of unit root tests for economic bubbles. An empirical application to the …


Quasi-Option Value Under Strategic Interactions, Tomoki Fujii, Ryuichiro Ishikawa Jan 2011

Quasi-Option Value Under Strategic Interactions, Tomoki Fujii, Ryuichiro Ishikawa

Research Collection School Of Economics

We consider a simple two-period model of irreversible investment under strategic interactions between two players. In this setup, we show that the quasi-option value may cause some conceptual difficulties. In case of asymmetric information, decentralized investment decisions fail to induce first-best allocations. Therefore a regulator may not be able to exercise the option to delay the decision to develop. We also show that information-induced inefficiency may arise in a game situation and that under certain assumptions inefficiency can be eliminated by sending asymmetric information to the players, even when the regulator faces informational constraints. Our model is potentially applicable to …


The Impact Of Transaction Duration, Volume And Direction On Price Dynamics And Volatility, Anthony S. Tay, Christopher Ting, Yiu Kuen Tse, Mitchell Warachka Jan 2011

The Impact Of Transaction Duration, Volume And Direction On Price Dynamics And Volatility, Anthony S. Tay, Christopher Ting, Yiu Kuen Tse, Mitchell Warachka

Research Collection School Of Economics

We explore the role of trade volume, trade direction, and the duration between trades in explaining price dynamics and volatility using an Asymmetric Autoregressive Conditional Duration model applied to intraday transactions data. Our results suggest that volume, direction and duration are important determinants of price dynamics, while duration is also an important determinant of volatility. However, the impact of volume and direction on volatility is marginal after controlling for duration, and the impact of volume on volatility appears to be confined to periods of infrequent trading.


Off The Cliff And Back? Credit Conditions And International Trade During The Global Financial Crisis, Davin Chor, Kalina Manova Jul 2010

Off The Cliff And Back? Credit Conditions And International Trade During The Global Financial Crisis, Davin Chor, Kalina Manova

Research Collection School Of Economics

We study the collapse of international trade flows during the global financial crisis using detailed data on monthly US imports. We show that credit conditions were an important channel through which the crisis affected trade volumes, by exploiting the variation in the cost of capital across countries and over time, as well as the variation in financial vulnerability across sectors. Countries with higher interbank rates and thus tighter credit markets exported less to the US during the peak of the crisis. This effect was especially pronounced in sectors that require extensive external financing, have limited access to trade credit, or …


The Optimal Degree Of Reciprocity In Tariff Reduction, Pao Li Chang Feb 2010

The Optimal Degree Of Reciprocity In Tariff Reduction, Pao Li Chang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This article clari.es the roles played by trade policy, in contrast with iceberg transport cost, in the popular setting of Melitz (2003), and characterizes the optimal reciprocal trade policy in such a setting. I show that import tariffs and iceberg transport cost are not equivalent in the strength of their trade-restricting e¤ects and their welfare implications. With all the con.icting effectsof import tari¤s on welfare considered, the optimal degree of reciprocity in multilateral tari¤ reduction turns out to be free trade.


Dating The Timeline Of Financial Bubbles During The Subprime Crisis, Peter C. B. Phillips, Jun Yu Nov 2009

Dating The Timeline Of Financial Bubbles During The Subprime Crisis, Peter C. B. Phillips, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

A new recursive regression methodology is introduced to analyze the bubble characteristics of various financial time series during the subprime crisis. The methods modify a technique proposed in Phillips, Wu, and Yu (2011) and provide a technology for identifying bubble behavior with consistent dating of their origination and collapse. The tests serve as an early warning diagnostic of bubble activity and a new procedure is introduced for testing bubble migration across markets. Three relevant financial series are investigated, including a financial asset price (a house price index), a commodity price (the crude oil price), and one bond price (the spread …


Using High-Frequency Transaction Data To Estimate The Probability Of Informed Trading, Anthony S. Tay, Christopher Ting, Yiu Kuen Tse, Mitchell Warachka May 2009

Using High-Frequency Transaction Data To Estimate The Probability Of Informed Trading, Anthony S. Tay, Christopher Ting, Yiu Kuen Tse, Mitchell Warachka

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper applies the asymmetric autoregressive conditional duration (AACD) model of Bauwens and Giot (2003) to estimate the probability of informed trading (PIN) using irregularly spaced transaction data. We model trade direction (buy versus sell orders) and the duration between trades jointly. Unlike the Easley, Hvidkjaer, and O'Hara (2002) approach, which uses the aggregate numbers of daily buy and sell orders to estimate PIN, our methodology allows for interactions between consecutive buy-sell orders and accounts for the duration between trades and the volume of trade. We extend the Easley–Hvidkjaer–O'Hara framework by allowing the probabilities of good news and bad news …


Modeling Transaction Data Of Trade Direction And Estimation Of Probability Of Informed Trading, Anthony S. Tay, Christopher Ting, Yiu Kuen Tse, Mitch Warachka Jan 2007

Modeling Transaction Data Of Trade Direction And Estimation Of Probability Of Informed Trading, Anthony S. Tay, Christopher Ting, Yiu Kuen Tse, Mitch Warachka

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper implements the Asymmetric AutoregressiveConditional Duration (AACD) model of Bauwens and Giot (2003) to analyzeirregularly spaced transaction data of trade direction, namely buy versus sellorders. We examine the influence of lagged transaction duration, lagged volumeand lagged trade direction on transaction duration and direction. Our resultsare applied to estimate the probability of informed trading (PIN) based on theEasley, Hvidkjaer and O’Hara (2002) framework. Unlike the Easley-Hvidkjaer-O’Hara model, which uses the daily aggregate number of buy and sellorders, the AACD model makes full use of transaction data and allows forinteractions between buy and sell orders.


Realized Daily Variance Of S&P 500 Cash Index: A Revaluation Of Stylized Facts, Shirley Huang, Qianqiu Liu, Jun Yu Jan 2007

Realized Daily Variance Of S&P 500 Cash Index: A Revaluation Of Stylized Facts, Shirley Huang, Qianqiu Liu, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper the realized daily variance is obtained from intraday transaction prices of the S&P 500 cash index over the period from January 1993 to December 2004. When constructing realized daily variance, market microstructure noise is taken into account using a technique proposed by Zhang, Mykland and Ait-Sahalia (2005). The time series properties of realized daily variance are compared with those of variance estimates obtained from parametric GARCH and stochastic volatility models. Unconditional and dynamic properties concerning the realized daily variance are examined, the relationship between realized variance and returns is investigated, and the stylized facts concerning realized daily …


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 …


Investing In Real Estate: Mortgage Financing Practices And Optimal Holding Period, Winston T. H. Koh, Edward H. K. Ng Feb 2005

Investing In Real Estate: Mortgage Financing Practices And Optimal Holding Period, Winston T. H. Koh, Edward H. K. Ng

Research Collection School Of Economics

Real estate investments are typically characterized by high degrees of leverage and long loan tenures. In perfect capital markets, leverage has no impact on the investment decision apart from tax considerations. However, the mortgage financing market is imperfect in many countries. In the presence of market imperfections, an optimal holding period exists for real property investments. We provide a simple rule to calculate the optimal holding period is to compare the required rate of return with the leveraged rate of return on equity.


Bank Lending And Real Estate In Asia: Market Optimism And Asset Bubbles, Winston T. H. Koh, Roberto S. Mariano, Andrey Pavlov, Sock-Yong Phang, Augustine H. H. Tan, Susan M. Wachter Jan 2005

Bank Lending And Real Estate In Asia: Market Optimism And Asset Bubbles, Winston T. H. Koh, Roberto S. Mariano, Andrey Pavlov, Sock-Yong Phang, Augustine H. H. Tan, Susan M. Wachter

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper investigates the Asian real estate price run-up and collapse in the 1990s. We identify financial intermediaries’ underpricing of the put option imbedded in non-recourse mortgage loans as a potential cause for the observed price behavior. This underpricing is due to behavioral causes (lender optimism and disaster myopia) and/or rational response of lenders to market incentives (agency conflicts, deposit insurance, or limited liability of bank shareholders). The empirical evidence suggests that underpricing occurred in Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Consequently, these countries experienced a more severe market crash than Hong Kong and Singapore, where underpricing was kept under control by …


Investing In Real Estate: Mortgage Financing Practices And Optimal Holding Period, Winston T. H. Koh, Edward H. K. Ng Dec 2004

Investing In Real Estate: Mortgage Financing Practices And Optimal Holding Period, Winston T. H. Koh, Edward H. K. Ng

Research Collection School Of Economics

Real estate investments are typically characterized by high degrees of leverage and long-loan tenures. In perfect capital markets, leverage has no impact on the investment decision apart from tax considerations. However, the mortgage financing market is imperfect in many countries. In the presence of market imperfections, an optimal holding period exists for real property investments. We provide a simple rule to calculate the optimal holding period to compare the required rate of return with the leveraged rate of return on equity.