Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Bespoke Realized Volatility: Tailored Measures Of Risk For Volatility Prediction, Andrew John Patton, Haozhe Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

Standard realized volatility (RV) measures estimate the latent volatility of an asset price using high frequency data with no reference to how or where the estimate will subsequently be used. This paper presents methods for “tailoring” the estimate of volatility to the application in which it will be used. For example, if the volatility measure will be used in a specific parametric forecasting model, it may be possible to exploit that knowledge to construct a better measure of volatility. We use methods from machine learning to estimate optimal “bespoke” RVs for heterogeneous autoregressive (HAR) and GARCH-X forecasting applications. We apply …

The Smu Trade Dashboard: Tracking And Quantifying The Trump Ii Tariffs, Pao-Li Chang, Ruoqing Chen, Lin Ma

Research Collection School Of Economics

The SMU Trade Dashboard (https://economics.smu.edu.sg/soetrade/tr ade-dashboard), developed by the SMU Center for Research on International Trade, consists of Tariff Tracker and Trade Simulation functions. The Tariff Tracker allows users to track the tariff applicable to an HS 6-digit product or an ISIC 2-digit sector bymarkets and country origins. The Trade Simulation presents quantitative simulation results of the effects of Trump II tariffs (and the associated tariff responses by its trading partners) on trade flows, welfare, and wages. This companion paper documents the methodologies underlying the tariff data collection protocol and the structuralsimulation designs.

Financial Valuation Of Retirement Village Via Stochastic Modelling Of Disability Prevalence Rates, Jackie Li, Mingke Wang, Jia Liu, Jessica Wai Yin Leung

Research Collection School Of Economics

Global mortality rates continue to decline, and life expectancy continues its upward trend. Besides mortality levels, policymakers and providers of financial and health services would also be interested in disability prevalence and its potential future trajectories. The length of time in good health versus the duration with major disabilities or long-term illnesses has significant financial implications for both individuals and society. In this paper, we develop Bayesian common factor models to analyse Australian age- and sex-specific disability prevalence rates. In particular, there are one or more common factors shared by both sexes, as well as specific factors for each sex. …

Success And Flourishing In Singapore: The Impact Of Laws And Policies On The Ethos And Character Of A People, Seow Hon Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

According to virtue jurisprudence, good laws can be conducive to virtuous living; poor laws can contribute to character vices and entrench prejudices. This article focuses on what lies beyond the strict categorization of virtue and vice simpliciter—the ethos and mindset of a people. Using a case study of Singapore, this article examines how law, conceived of in the broadest sense as including policies chosen in a legal regime that leaves the concretization of policies to government bodies, can diminish the capacity and desire of individuals to live examined lives in pursuit of eudaimonia or flourishing. Insofar as living examined lives …

Nature Versus Non-Natural Environments: Effects On Stress And Creativity, Amy J. Lim, Stephen M. Colarelli, Norman P. Li, Liqun Wei, Ming-Hong Tsai, Xiao-Xiao Liu, Mark Van Vugt

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

We examined the effects of nature-based environmental stimuli versus evolutionarily novel built or abstract art environments on creative production in three experiments. In Study 1 (N = 85), we compared people's creative performance in rooms set up to display either a natural or built landscape. In Study 2 (N = 62), participants completed creativity tasks after taking a walk in an urbanized city district or after a walk in a forested park. In Study 3 (N = 108), using a longitudinal field experiment taking place over three months, we examined the creative performance of factory employees by comparing their normal …

Cultural Policy Beyond Economy: Democratising Access To The Arts Through Cultural Policy In Singapore, Su Fern Hoe

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Across the globe, governments have released cultural policies that aim to justify public expenditure on the arts through democratising access to the arts to the wider population. Singapore is no exception. This article critically examines the role of cultural policy in expanding access to the arts in Singapore. More specifically, this article will demonstrate how cultural policy in Singapore has traditionally and consistently adopted a democratisation of culture approach to broaden access to develop arts audiences. Through an analysis of cultural policy documents and statistical data on arts attendance and attitudes in Singapore, this article will highlight some of the …

The Moderating Effects Of Executive Functions: A Multi-Level Analysis Of Daily Stress And Problematic Social Media Use, Wee Qin Ng, Hwajin Yang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Mixed findings on the relationship between daily stress and social media use suggest the presence of moderators that buffer this link. Previous longitudinal studies, with assessment intervals from 1 month to 1 year, may not accurately capture daily fluctuations in stress and social media use. To address this gap, we conducted a fine-grained, temporally sensitive 7-day daily-diary longitudinal study investigating the dynamic within-person and between-person associations between daily stress, problematic social media use, and objective screen time. Using a theory-driven approach, we examined whether executive functions (EF)—a set of cognitive processes crucial for goal-directed behaviors—moderate the link between daily stress …

When Stress Matters Most: Developmental Timing And Socio-Ecological Stressors Among Mexican-Origin Adolescents From Low-Income Immigrant Families, Ka I Ip, Wen Wen, Sujin Lee, Wei Xiang Sim, Su Yeong Kim

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This study investigates the dynamic, time-varying associations between multiple socio-ecological stressors and internalizing symptoms among Mexican-origin youth from low-income immigrant families. Grounded in a socioecological framework and employing time-varying effect modeling (TVEM), we examine how stressors at the interpersonal, family, and neighborhood levels differentially influence anxiety and depressive symptoms across early adolescence (ages 11–13), middle adolescence (ages 14–17), and late adolescence/emerging adulthood (ages 18–20). Participants included 604 Mexican-origin adolescents (54% female) from low-income immigrant families, assessed across three waves spanning nine years. Five distinct stressors were identified: discrimination, foreigner stress, economic stress, language brokering stress, and neighborhood violence/non-safety. Results from …

How Intellectual Humility Enhances Affective Well-Being: Daily Diary Studies On The Mediating Roles Of Daily Uplift And Stressor Exposure, Ysabel A. Guevarra, K. T. A. Sandeeshwara Kasturiratna, Andree Hartanto, Eddie M. W. Tong, Verity Y. Q. Lua, Nadyanna M. Majeed

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Objective: While intellectual humility has gained increasing prominence as a cognitive construct, its implications for affective well-being remain less understood. Method: The present paper draws on 7-day daily diary datasets (Study 1: Nparticipants=253, Nobservations=1721; Study 2: Nparticipants=485, Nobservations=3218) to examine how trait intellectual humility relates to daily positive and negative affect during uplifting and stressful events. We also tested potential mechanisms underlying the link between intellectual humility and affective well-being by examining whether intellectual humility moderates affective reactions to daily events or whether it indirectly enhances affective well-being by influencing the frequency of daily uplift and stressor exposure. Results: Across …

Honing The Haptics Of The Heart: A New Defence Of The Perceptual Theory Of Emotion, Brandon Yip

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

According to the perceptual theory of emotion, emotions are evaluative perceptions. However, emotions involve us in a way that regular perception does not and this has led to two influential objections to the perceptual theory have emerged. According to the first objection, the perceptual theory is false because the phenomenology of emotion is the phenomenology of response. According to the second objection, the perceptual theory is false because emotions are susceptible to evaluations of rationality and reason-responsiveness. In this essay, I defend the perceptual theory by disarming these two objections. In response to the first objection, I suggest that emotional …

Living Well: The Built, Lived, And Social Determinants Of Well-Being, Yi Wen Tan, Zidane Tiew, Emi Loh, Shania Go, Wensi Lim

ROSA Research Briefs

As Singapore transitions into a super-aged society, it becomes imperative for us to develop sustainable, inclusive, and effective models of care. In recent years, there has been growing emphasis on embedding healthcare, social services, and everyday amenities within the community. During this year’s National Day Rally, the Government introduced Age Well Neighbourhoods, a new scheme that builds on existing efforts from the Age Well SG initiative. Age Well Neighbourhoods seeks to expand active ageing centre networks, bring healthcare closer to homes with the establishment of community health posts, and provide greater home personal care services, further cementing its focus on …

A ‘Digital Dominion’: Launching The Commonwealth Model Law On Digital Trade, Craig Atkinson

Centre for Digital Law

A legislative text published for the benefit of its 56 member countries, the Commonwealth of Nations officially adopted the Model Law on Digital Trade (MLDT) in September 2025. The Commonwealth MLDT addresses a persistent barrier to digital trade (i.e., all trade that is digitally ordered and/or digitally delivered): the laws of many jurisdictions do not sufficiently recognise the legal requirements of electronic commerce (e-commerce) and continue to emphasise paper-bases for commercial communications and transactions in domestic and cross-border contexts.

Corrigendum To “Interim Rationalizable Implementation Of Functions” (Kunimoto T, Saran R, Serrano R (2024) Mathematics Of Operations Research 49(3):1791–1824), Takashi Kunimoto, Rene Saran, Roberto Serrano

Research Collection School Of Economics

This is the brief corrigendum to “Interim rationalizable implementation of functions” [Kunimoto T, Saran R, Serrano R (2024) Interim rationalizable implementation of functions. Math. Oper Res. 49(3):1791–1824].

Perceptions Of Game-Based Assessments: The Role Of Test Takers' Occupational Background, Marie L. Ohlms, Klaus G. Melchers, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Game-based assessments (GBAs) have become increasingly popular in personnel selection. However, research on perceptions of GBAs has yielded mixed results, highlighting the need to explore variables that may shape perceptions of GBAs. Therefore, we examined whether test takers' occupational background and other person-related characteristics (i.e., gender, age, video game usage, openness to experience) are associated with their perceptions of GBAs. N = 179 individuals from technical and social occupational backgrounds rated their perceptions of GBAs and non-gamified tests. We found that GBAs were generally rated more positively than non-gamified tests in terms of organizational attractiveness, behavioral intentions toward the organization, …

Dynamic Spatial Panel Data Models With Interactive Fixed Effects: M-Estimation And Inference Under Fixed Or Relatively Small T, Liyao Li, Ke Miao, Zhenlin Yang

Research Collection School Of Economics

We propose an M-estimation method for dynamic spatial panel data models with interactive fixed effects based on (relatively) short panels. Unbiased estimating functions are constructed by adjusting the concentrated conditional quasi scores, given the initial values and with the factor loadings being concentrated out, to account for the effects of conditioning and concentration. Solving the estimating equations gives the M-estimators of the common parameters and common factors. Under fixed T, n-consistency and joint asymptotic normality of the M-estimators are established. Under T = o(n), the M-estimators of the common parameters are shown to be nT-consistent and asymptotically normal. For inference, …

The Feelit System: Application Content-Aware Perspectives And Challenges On Understanding User Likes In Social Network Posts, Konstantinos Theocharidis, Hady W. Lauw, Panagiotis Karras

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In a series of our prior works, we study influence and subscription maximization problems in social networks that are based on posts having influential content; as content we consider a set of features where each feature corresponds to a specific social network page, whereas influence and subscription relate to gaining the postlike and subscription-to-brand page of targeted users, respectively; subscription is conceptually achieved as repetitive influence on users. So, both influence and subscription depend on content that gains the likes of users; however, to be realistic, modeling and estimating such likes is a complex problem that has not been adequately …

Zero-Shot Video Translation Via Token Warping, Haiming Zhu, Yangyang Xu, Jun Yu, Shengfeng He

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the revolution of generative AI, video-related tasks have been widely studied. However, current state-of-the-art video models still lag behind image models in visual quality and user control over generated content. In this paper, we introduce TokenWarping, a novel framework for temporally coherent video translation. Existing diffusion-based video editing approaches rely solely on key and value patches in self-attention to ensure temporal consistency, often sacrificing the preservation of local and structural regions. Critically, these methods overlook the significance of the query patches in achieving accurate feature aggregation and temporal coherence. In contrast, TokenWarping leverages complementary token priors by constructing temporal …

Essays On Public Policy And Health Outcomes: Unintended Consequences And The Cost Of Influence, Wenhan Yan

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This dissertation investigates the complex behavioral responses to public policy shifts and institutional cues, quantifying their intended and unintended societal impacts. Across two distinct empirical contexts, this research examines how individuals adapt their risk profiles when signals from political or legal authorities change and how these adaptations generate measurable externalities.

The first chapter, "From Punishment to Treatment: Unintended Social Impacts of Changing Drug Policies," shifts the focus to the intersection of health policy and criminal justice. This chapter evaluates the sudden transition from punitive drug enforcement to health-oriented decriminalization, utilizing the 2021 State v. Blake decision in Washington as a …

Are Cities Losing Innovation Advantages? Online Versus Face-To-Face Interactions, Ruben Gaetani, Naqun Huang, Jing Li, Yanmin Yang

Research Collection School Of Economics

How did COVID-19 affect the innovation advantages of dense locations? Using data on the universe of U.S. patent applications, we find that the density premium in the production of novel inventions declined by 18.5%-22.9% in 2020-2021 relative to its pre-pandemic level. Smartphone data on local mobility suggest that the drop in the frequency of local interactions can explain a significant portion of this effect. While COVID-19 resulted in a temporary setback in the innovation advantages of dense locations, the role of urban density in facilitating the exchange and recombination of ideas is unlikely to be persistently replaced by online communication.

Projecting Inflation Tail Risks In A Small Open Economy: Some Evidence From Singapore, Hwee Kwan Chow-Tan, Jordan Lee

Research Collection School Of Economics

This study empirically assesses the drivers of risks to the inflation outlook for a small open economy like Singapore. We apply the inflation-at-risk framework of López-Salido and Loria (2020) and incorporate projections from the Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) as point forecasts of inflation. Our findings show that macro-financial risk factors—shaped by Singapore’s openness, role as a financial hub, and exchange rate–centered monetary policy framework—enter nonlinearly into inflation risk models and exert differentiated effects. Foreign price pressures heighten upside risks, and exchange rate policy has proven effective at mitigating them. Tighter global financial conditions amplify inflation risks through cost-push channels, …

Geopolitical Ecologies Of Cloud Capitalism: Territorial Restructuring And The Making Of National Computing Power In The Us And China, Justin Kollar, Sol Andrew Stokols

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

As computing power becomes central to geopolitical rivalry, cloud infrastructure is increasingly framed as critical to national security, economic resilience and technological sovereignty. Current debates often focus on global competition – especially between the U.S. and China – highlighting strategic investments, export controls and infrastructure diplomacy abroad. Yet far less attention has been paid to the domestic territorial transformations that make such geopolitical projection possible. This paper argues that national strategies for AI and cloud dominance depend on the reorganization of land, energy and regulatory systems to sustain large-scale computation. Using a geopolitical ecology framework, we examine how the U.S. …

Modernising Wills For A Smart Nation, Hang Wu Tang, Edward Ti

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In a commentary, SMU Lee Kong Chian Professor of Law Tang Hang Wu and SMU Associate Dean (Undergraduate Curriculum and Teaching) and Associate Professor of Law Edward Ti highlighted that Singapore has digitalised almost everything around the will, but not the will itself. Prof Tang and Assoc Prof Ti noted that the current legislation insists that the will itself remains a paper ritual, which is not just an inconvenience but also risks Singapore’s competitiveness. They argued that Singapore should modernise without compromising on steps to prevent fraud and undue influence. They highlighted that the law should be modernised so that …

Uncertain Search With Knowledge Transfer, Woonghee Tim Huh, Michael Jong Kim, Meichun Lin

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We consider a sequential search over a group of similar alternatives. The individual value of an alternative contains two components, an observable utility and an idiosyncratic value. Observable utilities share an unknown population distribution, which captures the similarity across the alternatives and allows for knowledge transfer within the group. Once a decision maker encounters an alternative, its utility is revealed immediately, whereas the idiosyncratic value is unobservable and needs to be learned by sampling. The goal is to select an alternative with the highest individual value while accounting for the sampling and search costs. A novel feature of this problem …

A Social Norm Perspective On Distorted Information In China, Zhe Li, Massimo Massa, Nianhang Xu, Hong Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Can social norms give rise to distorted information in China? We observe that China’s leading social norm related to alcohol consumption and social drinking enhance earnings management. An analysis of toxic alcohol scandals supports a causal interpretation. Further evidence suggests that the influence of alcohol may come from the negative externality that it creates, which is propagated by corporate leaders and cannot be attenuated by market-oriented institutions. Our results reveal a social norm externality that may have important normative implications.

There Is No One-Size-Fits-All Approach To Sovereign Finance, Guan Seng Khoo, Annie Koh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In a commentary, SMU Professor Emeritus of Finance (Practice) Annie Koh and Khoo Guan Seng, Asia-Pacific advisory council member of the SWF Academy and EU-Asean Centre, opined that in a volatile world, the strength of a sovereign wealth fund lies in its ability to fulfil its specific, sovereign purpose. Prof Koh and Mr Khoo said that sovereign wealth funds are bespoke instruments of national policy, and in the world of sovereign capital, one size does not, and cannot, fit all. They noted that each fund is a reflection of a country’s unique ambitions, its resource endowments and its specific fears …

Situation Descriptions In Situational Judgment Tests: A Matter Of Including Trait-Relevant Situational Cues?, Philipp Schapers, Stefan Krumm, Filip Lievens, Jan-Philipp Freudenstein, Julian Schulze, Cornelius J. Konig

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

SJTs have traditionally been conceptualized as low-fidelity simulations of how respond to work-related situations. Yet, several studies demonstrated that situation descriptions were necessary to solve some SJT items, whereas they were not needed for other SJT items. So far, no solid support was found for various factors (e.g., item characteristics, presentation format, instructions, and content domain) that make some situation descriptions relevant and others irrelevant for responding to SJT items. Building on trait activation theory, we posit that trait-relevant situational cues serve as an ignored factor in SJT situation descriptions. Across two main studies (N-1 = 269, N-2 = 1,092), …

Eliciting Supplier Cooperation For Value Chain Decarbonization: A Field Experiment With Smallholder Farmers In India, Sukti Ghosh, Jasjit Singh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Many firms are pledging to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across their value chains. However, this requires their suppliers to also adopt more climate-friendly practices for decarbonization. This can involve addressing gaps in not only the suppliers’ ability but also their willingness to adopt such practices, which can be challenging if the suppliers perceive the practices as risky or potentially detrimental to their economic well-being. We examine the effectiveness of relational investments to help mitigate this challenge, arguing that relational investments can serve as a signal of the firm’s commitment towards joint value creation. In a field experiment conducted with supplier …

Agency Mbs As Safe Assets, Zhiguo He, Zhaogang Song

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Measured as yield spreads against Treasury securities and AAA corporate bonds, the convenience premium of newly issued agency MBS averages more than half of the long-term Treasury convenience premium. The agency MBS convenience premium and issuance amount vary negatively with mortgage rate, consistent with a prepayment-driven channel. Placing agencies into conservatorship in 2008 and introducing liquidity regulations in 2013 significantly affected MBS convenience premium, consistent with government guarantee and regulatory treatment channels. Analyses of dispersion of dealers’ prepayment forecasts, seasoned MBS, and investors’ MBS holdings deliver further economic implications for agency MBS as safe assets.

A General Limit Theory For Nonlinear Functionals Of Nonstationary Time Series, Qiying Wang, Peter C. B. Phillips

Research Collection School Of Economics

New limit theory is provided for a wide class of sample variance and covariance functionals involving both nonstationary and stationary time series. Sample functionals of this type commonly appear in regression applications and the asymptotics are particularly relevant to estimation and inference in nonlinear nonstationary regressions that involve unit root, local unit root, or fractional processes. The limit theory is unusually general in that it covers both parametric and nonparametric regressions. Self-normalized versions of these statistics are considered that are useful in inference. Numerical evidence reveals interesting strong bimodality in the finite sample distributions of conventional self-normalized statistics similar to …

Removed: When Taxi Drivers Meet Dynamic Pricing: A Lesson From Singapore's Justgrab Program, Shih-Fen Cheng, Wen-Tai Hsu, Jing Li

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper studies how dynamic pricing influences taxi drivers’ behaviors using a unique event, the inception of the JustGrab program in Singapore in 2017, which introduces dynamic pricing to some, but not all, taxi drivers. This is the first time in history that traditional taxi drivers have access to dynamic pricing. Using data covering the universe of taxi trips before and after the inception of JustGrab, we find that there is spatial reallocation that directs more taxi drivers to the previously less-served areas, that there is also a temporal reallocation that directs more taxi drivers to rush hours, as well …