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Singapore Management University

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2009

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Articles 1 - 30 of 203

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

How Valued-Added Is Your Library Instruction? Research Librarians Work With Faculty To Conduct In-Class Training, Charlotte Gill, Rajendra Munoo, Priyanka Sharma Dec 2009

How Valued-Added Is Your Library Instruction? Research Librarians Work With Faculty To Conduct In-Class Training, Charlotte Gill, Rajendra Munoo, Priyanka Sharma

Research Collection Library

This training ws developed as a helpful follow-up for the future business decision-makers to be introduced to the process of thinking through the legal implications of business services and products, with a view to giving cogent instructions to legal counsel.

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The Hard Embodiment Of Culture, Dov Cohen, Angela K. Y. Leung Dec 2009

The Hard Embodiment Of Culture, Dov Cohen, Angela K. Y. Leung

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The way humans move and comport their bodies is one way they (literally) carry their culture. In pre-wired embodiments, body comportment triggers basic, evolutionarily prepared affective and cognitive reactions that subsequently prime more complex representations. Culture suffuses this process, because (1) cultural artifacts, affordances, and practices make certain body comportments more likely, (2) cultural practices, rituals, schemas, and rules promote the learning of an otherwise underspecified connection between a given body comportment and a particular basic reaction, and (3) cultural meaning systems elaborate basic affective and cognitive reactions into more complex representations. These points are illustrated with three experiments that …

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China’S Strategy For Free Trade Agreements: Political Battle In The Name Of Trade, Shuchao Henry Gao Dec 2009

China’S Strategy For Free Trade Agreements: Political Battle In The Name Of Trade, Shuchao Henry Gao

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Compared with Europe and America, East Asia is a latecomer in the new gold-rush of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). In this process, China has played a significant role. This is not only due to the growing economic clout of China, but also because China has taken a conscious strategy to push for economic integration in the region. Thus, for the benefits of the countries in the region, it is very important to understand China’s FTA strategy. This article starts with the evolving picture of China’s FTA web, then discusses the key components of China’s FTA strategy, and concludes by noting …

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Empirical Likelihood In Missing Data Problems, Jing Qin, Biao Zhang, Denis H. Y. Leung Dec 2009

Empirical Likelihood In Missing Data Problems, Jing Qin, Biao Zhang, Denis H. Y. Leung

Research Collection School Of Economics

Missing data is a ubiquitous problem in medical and social sciences. It is well known that inferences based only on the complete data may not only lose efficiency, but may also lead to biased results if the data is not missing completely at random (MCAR). The inverse-probability weighting method proposed by Horvitz and Thompson (1952) is a popular alternative when the data is not MCAR. The Horvitz–Thompson method, however, is sensitive to the inverse weights and may suffer from loss of efficiency. In this paper, we propose a unified empirical likelihood approach to missing data problems and explore the use …

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Who Governs Energy? The Challenges Facing Global Energy Governance, Ann Florini, Benjamin K. Sovacool Dec 2009

Who Governs Energy? The Challenges Facing Global Energy Governance, Ann Florini, Benjamin K. Sovacool

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article conceptualizes the energy problems facing society from a global governance perspective. It argues that a notion of "global energy governance," taken to mean international collective action efforts undertaken to manage and distribute energy resources and provide energy services, offers a meaningful and useful framework for assessing energy-related challenges. The article begins by exploring the concepts of governance, global governance, and global energy governance. It then examines some of the existing institutions in place to establish and carry out rules and norms governing global energy problems and describes the range of institutional design options available to policymakers. It briefly …

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Culture, Psyche, And Body Make Each Other Up, Dov Cohen, Angela K. Y. Leung, Hans Ijzerman Dec 2009

Culture, Psyche, And Body Make Each Other Up, Dov Cohen, Angela K. Y. Leung, Hans Ijzerman

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The commentaries make important points, including ones about the purposeful uses of embodiment effects. Research examining such effects needs to look at how such effects play themselves out in people's everyday lives. Research might usefully integrate work on embodiment with work on attribution and work in other disciplines concerned with body–psyche connections (e.g., research on somaticizing versus “psychologizing” illnesses and hypercognizing versus hypocognizing emotions). Such work may help us understand the way positive and negative feedback loops operate as culture, psyche, and body make each other up.

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Tea Leaves Of The Economy: General Elections In 2010?, Tan K. B. Eugene Dec 2009

Tea Leaves Of The Economy: General Elections In 2010?, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Incumbent governments with good economic track records would typically capitalise on economic downturns to seize a political advantage by calling for early elections. Will the ruling People's Action Party do so nect year in view of the strong economic perormances in recent months?

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An Entity Sui Generis In The Wto: Taiwan's Wto Membership And Its Trade Law Regime, Han-Wei Liu Dec 2009

An Entity Sui Generis In The Wto: Taiwan's Wto Membership And Its Trade Law Regime, Han-Wei Liu

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

As one of the founding members of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), Taiwan (the Republic of China or ROC) - the 17th largest economy, was granted accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in November 2001 after its observer status of eleven years. Taiwan, classified by most commentators as an "unrecognized state" or an "entity sui generis", has been excluded from most of the major international organizations. Taiwan's accession to the WTO, therefore, is considered to be an important breakthrough in diplomacy for the past decades. Notwithstanding its WTO membership, the Taiwanese Government has employed numerous trade …

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Mediating The Media: A Journalist-Centric Model In Managing The Media By Corporate Communication Practitioners, Augustine Pang Dec 2009

Mediating The Media: A Journalist-Centric Model In Managing The Media By Corporate Communication Practitioners, Augustine Pang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Purpose: The prevailing challenge faced by practitioners is to conduct effective media relations, especially with the proliferation of diverse media platforms both online and offline. For such a predominant and critical function, a systematic approach needs to be offered. This paper aims to address these issues. Design/methodology/approach: A new model is developed, drawing on insights from corporate communications and journalism literature. Findings: This model identifies two sets of influences that practitioners should seek to understand. The internal influences include journalist mindsets, journalist routines, and newsroom routines. The external influences include extra-media forces and media ideology. Research limitations/implications: At this juncture, …

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Impact Of Culture On ‘Partner Selection Criteria’ In East Asian International Joint Ventures, Ravinder K. Zutshi, Wee Liang Tan Dec 2009

Impact Of Culture On ‘Partner Selection Criteria’ In East Asian International Joint Ventures, Ravinder K. Zutshi, Wee Liang Tan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Selecting the right partner is important for the success of alliances and joint ventures. For international joint ventures (IJVs) from diverse cultures the partner selection process can become complicated. Prior studies have investigated the alliances and joint ventures to develop a set of objective criteria for evaluating potential partners. This paper reports the study of IJVs formed by Singapore firms in Peoples Republic of China and India. The intent was to develop a methodology for identifying partner selection criteria in a cross-cultural setting. The findings reveal that the partner selection process follows a different logic in Confucian societies. Trust has …

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Dialogic Cosmopolitanism And Global Justice, Eduard Christiaan Jordaan Dec 2009

Dialogic Cosmopolitanism And Global Justice, Eduard Christiaan Jordaan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Although the term “cosmopolitan-communitarian debate” never really caught on, a national-global fault line remains prominent in debates about global justice. “Dialogic cosmopolitanism” holds the promise of bridging this alleged fault line by accepting many of the communitarian criticisms against cosmopolitanism and following what can be described as a communitarian path to cosmopolitanism. This article identifies and describes four key elements that distinguish dialogic cosmopolitanism: a respect for difference; a commitment to genuine dialogue; an open, hesitant and self-problematising attitude on the part of the moral subject; and an undertaking to expand the boundaries of moral concern to the point of …

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Well-Being On Planet Earth, Ed Diener, William Tov Dec 2009

Well-Being On Planet Earth, Ed Diener, William Tov

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The Gallup World Poll allows a look at how humanity is flourishing, based on the answers of survey respondents sampled from across the globe. Several conclusions are clear. First, how people are doing depends enormously on the society in which they live, and nations vary from doing very well to extremely poorly. In terms of subjective well-being, nations vary greatly, in both judgments of overall life and in positive and negative emotions. The best predictors of global life judgments were income and ownership of modern conveniences, whereas the best predictors of emotions were social factors such as the control of …

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Dialogic Cosmopolitanism And Global Justice, Eduard Jordaan Dec 2009

Dialogic Cosmopolitanism And Global Justice, Eduard Jordaan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Although the term “cosmopolitan-communitarian debate” never really caught on, a national-global fault line remains prominent in debates about global justice. “Dialogic cosmopolitanism” holds the promise of bridging this alleged fault line by accepting many of the communitarian criticisms against cosmopolitanism and following what can be described as a communitarian path to cosmopolitanism. This article identifies and describes four key elements that distinguish dialogic cosmopolitanism: a respect for difference; a commitment to genuine dialogue; an open, hesitant and self-problematising attitude on the part of the moral subject; and an undertaking to expand the boundaries of moral concern to the point of …

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Poetry And The Politics Of History: Revisiting Ee Tiang Hong, Kirpal Singh Dec 2009

Poetry And The Politics Of History: Revisiting Ee Tiang Hong, Kirpal Singh

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The Malaysian poet Ee Tiang Hong was troubled by the fundamental changes being introduced by the leaders to ensure that Malaysia (which Ee always referred to as Malaya) became centrally a Malay nation. Not only was Ee trying his best to dissociate himself from what he termed the “mimicry of foreign birds” (i.e. the language of the colonial masters) but he was more critically searching for a new idiom which would give freshness to the rendition of the Malayan experience. While this struggle was in process, the tragedy of May 13 (1969) struck: here was a blatant illustration of the …

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Freedom Of Speech And Contempt By Scandalizing The Court In Singapore, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee Nov 2009

Freedom Of Speech And Contempt By Scandalizing The Court In Singapore, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The offence of scandalizing the court, a form of contempt of court, is regarded as obsolete in the United Kingdom. However, it continues to be imposed in other Commonwealth nations and remains very much alive in Singapore, having been applied in a crop of cases between 2006 and 2009. This short commentary examines one of these cases, Attorney-General v Hertzberg and others [2009] 1 Singapore Law Reports 1103, which has generated worldwide interest as it arose out of articles published in the Wall Street Journal Asia. In Hertzberg, the High Court of Singapore held that utterances by an alleged contemnor …

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Tunneling Through Intercorporate Loans: The China Experience, Guohua Jiang, Charles M. C. Lee, Heng Yue Nov 2009

Tunneling Through Intercorporate Loans: The China Experience, Guohua Jiang, Charles M. C. Lee, Heng Yue

Research Collection School of Accountancy

This study investigates a particularly brazen form of corporate abuse, in which controlling shareholders use intercorporate loans to siphon billions of RMB from hundreds of Chinese listed companies during the 1996 to 2006 period. We document the nature and extent of these transactions, evaluate their economic consequences, examine factors that affect their cross-sectional severity, and report on the mitigating roles of auditors, institutional investors, and regulators. Collectively, our findings shed light on the severity of the minority shareholder expropriation problem in China, as well as the relative efficacy of various legal and extra-legal governance mechanisms in that country.

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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 …

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Automated Likelihood Based Inference For Stochastic Volatility Models, H. Skaug, Jun Yu Nov 2009

Automated Likelihood Based Inference For Stochastic Volatility Models, H. Skaug, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

The Laplace approximation is used to perform maximum likelihood estimation of univariate and multivariate stochastic volatility (SV) models. It is shown that the implementation of the Laplace approximation is greatly simplified by the use of a numerical technique known as automatic differentiation (AD). Several algorithms are proposed and compared with some existing maximum likelihood methods using both simulated data and actual data. It is found that the new methods match the statistical efficiency of the existing methods while significantly reducing the coding effort. Also proposed are simple methods for obtaining the filtered, smoothed and predictive values for the latent variable. …

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Bias In The Estimation Of The Mean Reversion Parameter In Continuous Time Models, Jun Yu Nov 2009

Bias In The Estimation Of The Mean Reversion Parameter In Continuous Time Models, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

It is well known that for continuous time models with a linear drift standard estimation methods yield biased estimators for the mean reversion parameter both in nite discrete samples and in large in-…ll samples. In this paper, we obtain two expressions to approximate the bias of the least squares/maximum likelihood estimator of the mean reversion parameter in the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process with a known long run mean when discretely sampled data are available. The first expression mimics the bias formula of Marriott and Pope (1954) for the discrete time model. Simulations show that this expression does not work satisfactorily when the …

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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 …

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Explosive Behavior In The 1990s Nasdaq: When Did Exuberance Escalate Asset Values?, Peter C. B. Phillips, Yangru Wu, Jun Yu Nov 2009

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. Some asymptotic properties of the Evans …

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Forecasting Realized Volatility Using A Nonnegative Semiparametric Model, D. Preve, A. Eriksson, Jun Yu Nov 2009

Forecasting Realized Volatility Using A Nonnegative Semiparametric Model, D. Preve, A. Eriksson, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper introduces a parsimonious and yet flexible nonnegative semiparametric model to forecast volatility. The new model extends the linear nonnegative autoregressive model of Barndorff-Nielsen and Shephard (2001) and Nielsen and Shephard (2003) by way of a Box-Cox transformation. It is semiparametric in the sense that the dependency structure and the distributional form of its error component are left unspecified. The statistical properties of the model are discussed and a novel estimation method is proposed. Its out-of-sample performance is evaluated against a number of standard methods, using data on S&P 500 monthly realized volatilities. The competing models include the exponential …

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Directed Altruism And Enforced Reciprocity In Social Networks, Stephen Leider, Markus M. Mobius, Tanya Rosenblat, Quoc-Anh Do Nov 2009

Directed Altruism And Enforced Reciprocity In Social Networks, Stephen Leider, Markus M. Mobius, Tanya Rosenblat, Quoc-Anh Do

Research Collection School Of Economics

We conducted online field experiments in large real-world social networks in order to decompose prosocial giving into three components: (1) baseline altruism toward randomly selected strangers, (2) directed altruism that favors friends over random strangers, and (3) giving motivated by the prospect of future interaction. Directed altruism increases giving to friends by 52% relative to random strangers, whereas future interaction effects increase giving by an additional 24% when giving is socially efficient. This finding suggests that future interaction affects giving through a repeated game mechanism where agents can be rewarded for granting efficiency-enhancing favors. We also find that subjects with …

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Reaching Out And Beyond: A Review Of Southeast Asian Writing In English [Book Review], Kirpal Singh Nov 2009

Reaching Out And Beyond: A Review Of Southeast Asian Writing In English [Book Review], Kirpal Singh

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

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Economic Transition And Growth, Peter C. B. Phillips, Donggyu Sul Nov 2009

Economic Transition And Growth, Peter C. B. Phillips, Donggyu Sul

Research Collection School Of Economics

Some extensions of neoclassical growth models are discussed that allow for cross-section heterogeneity among economies and evolution in rates of technological progress over time. The models offer a spectrum of transitional behavior among economies that includes convergence to a common steady-state path as well as various forms of transitional divergence and convergence. Mechanisms for modeling such transitions, measuring them econometrically, assessing group behavior and selecting subgroups are developed in the paper. Some econometric issues with the commonly used augmented Solow regressions are pointed out, including problems of endogeneity and omitted variable bias which arise under conditions of transitional heterogeneity. Alternative …

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Why Did Universities Precede Primary Schools? A Political Economy Model Of Educational Change, Fali Huang Nov 2009

Why Did Universities Precede Primary Schools? A Political Economy Model Of Educational Change, Fali Huang

Research Collection School Of Economics

Universities were first established in Europe around the twelfth century, while primary schools did not appear until the nineteenth. This paper accounts for this phenomenon using a political economy model of educational change on who are educated (the elite or the masses) and what is taught (general or specific/vocational education). A key assumption is that general education is more effective than specific education in enhancing one’s skills in a broad range of tasks, including political rent-seeking. Its findings suggest that specific education for the masses is compatible with the elite rule, while mass general education is not, which refines the …

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Social Networks, Personal Values, And Creativity: Evidence For Curvilinear And Interaction Effects, Jing Zhou, Shung Jae Shin, Daniel J. Brass, Jaepil Choi, Zhi-Xue Zhang Nov 2009

Social Networks, Personal Values, And Creativity: Evidence For Curvilinear And Interaction Effects, Jing Zhou, Shung Jae Shin, Daniel J. Brass, Jaepil Choi, Zhi-Xue Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Taking an interactional perspective on creativity, the authors examined the influence of social networks and conformity value on employees' creativity. They theorized and found a curvilinear relationship between number of weak ties and creativity such that employees exhibited greater creativity when their number of weak ties was at intermediate levels rather than at lower or higher levels. In addition, employees' conformity value moderated the curvilinear relationship between number of weak ties and creativity such that employees exhibited greater creativity at intermediate levels of number of weak ties when conformity was low than when it was high. A proper match between …

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Brokerage Industry Self-Regulation: The Case Of Analysts’ Background Disclosures, Lawrence Brown, Artur Hugon, Hai Lu Nov 2009

Brokerage Industry Self-Regulation: The Case Of Analysts’ Background Disclosures, Lawrence Brown, Artur Hugon, Hai Lu

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We evaluate an industry disclosure initiative designed to inform investors, the practice of providing information regarding investment professionals’ backgrounds. Implicit in the motivation for this initiative is the presumed relevance of background information to investors seeking investment professionals’ guidance. We find that analysts with disclosure incidents forecast less accurately than a matched sample of analysts without such disclosures, and that the market views disclosed analysts’ earnings forecasts as less credible than those of the matched sample. Our evidence is consistent with disclosures signaling a persistent analyst characteristic. We conclude that analyst backgrounds are informative regarding both the accuracy and credibility …

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Compassion: Why It Is Better To Eat Fish, Knowledge@Smu Nov 2009

Compassion: Why It Is Better To Eat Fish, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Compassion was probably the farthest notion from Colonel Sanders’ mind when he became the global poster boy for delicious fried chicken. He had started his business in the early twentieth century – a period marked by the great depression and two world wars. Prejudices festered under the hostile global climate then, where little consideration was given to the suffering of human beings, much less animals. However, with the progress of time, scientific advancements have urged us, increasingly, to be kinder to fellow humans, animals, the environment… and that we really ought to be munching on fried fish instead.

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Personality Scale Validities Increase Throughout Medical School, Filip Lievens, Deniz S. Ones, Stephan Dilchert Nov 2009

Personality Scale Validities Increase Throughout Medical School, Filip Lievens, Deniz S. Ones, Stephan Dilchert

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Admissions and personnel decisions rely on stable predictor-criterion relationships. The authors studied the validity of Big Five personality factors and their facets for predicting academic performance in medical school across multiple years, investigating whether criterion-related validities change over time. In this longitudinal investigation, an entire European country's 1997 cohort of medical students was studied throughout their medical school career (Year 1, N = 627; Year 7, N = 306). Over time, extraversion, openness, and conscientiousness factor and facet scale scores showed increases in operational validity for predicting grade point averages. Although there may not be any advantages to being open …

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