Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Singapore Management University

Discipline
Keyword
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type
File Type

Articles 7951 - 7980 of 9281

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Financial Frictions And International Trade, Ruanjai Suwantaradon Aug 2008

Financial Frictions And International Trade, Ruanjai Suwantaradon

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper studies the effects of financial market imperfections on a firm’s operating and exporting decisions. I introduce financial frictions into a trade model with heterogeneous firms along the line of Melitz (2003). With the presence of financial constraints, even among a group of firms with the same productivity level, firms that are more financially constrained operate on a less efficient scale, and as a result, may no longer find operating and/or exporting profitable. In addition, financial frictions may create a distortion compared to the Melitz (2003) world since operation and export participation may be undertaken by those with better …


A Nonparametric Hellinger Metric Test For Conditional Independence, Liangjun Su, Halbert White Aug 2008

A Nonparametric Hellinger Metric Test For Conditional Independence, Liangjun Su, Halbert White

Research Collection School Of Economics

We propose a nonparametric test of conditional independence based on the weighted Hellinger distance between the two conditional densities, f(y|x,z) and f(y|x), which is identically zero under the null. We use the functional delta method to expand the test statistic around the population value and establish asymptotic normality under β-mixing conditions. We show that the test is consistent and has power against alternatives at distance n−1/2h−d/4. The cases for which not all random variables of interest are continuously valued or observable are also discussed. Monte Carlo simulation results indicate that the test behaves reasonably well in …


Global Governance And Energy, Ann Florini Aug 2008

Global Governance And Energy, Ann Florini

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Energy has risen to the top of policy agendas around the world. There is now widespread recognition that energy policy has become key to international security, economic development, and the environmental sustainability of modern civilization. Yet this importance is not reflected in the world’s institutional infrastructure for managing global problems. A handful of international organizations work in uncoordinated fashion on various pieces of the energy puzzle. No organizational infrastructure exists to support the global conversation that is now badly needed about how to move the world onto a sustainable path that provides appropriate, reliable, and affordable energy services.


Attributionally More Complex People Show Less Punitiveness And Racism, Kim-Pong Tam, Al Au, Angela K. Y. Leung Aug 2008

Attributionally More Complex People Show Less Punitiveness And Racism, Kim-Pong Tam, Al Au, Angela K. Y. Leung

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Based on past findings that attributionally more complex people make less fundamental attribution error, it was hypothesized that they would show less punitiveness and racism. In a study of 102 undergraduates, this hypothesis received robust support. The effect of attributional complexity was significant in two different punitiveness measures, a rehabilitation support measure, and two different racism measures. Also, this effect still held when demographic variables, crime victimization history, and need for cognition were statistically controlled. Moreover, attributional complexity mediated the effect of need for cognition and gender on punitiveness and racism. Theoretical implications are discussed.


Barking At The Big Dogs: South Africa's Foreign Policy Towards The Middle East, Eduard Jordaan Aug 2008

Barking At The Big Dogs: South Africa's Foreign Policy Towards The Middle East, Eduard Jordaan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article places South Africa's foreign policy towards the Middle East in the context of the country's general foreign policy. South Africa is classified as a middle power, given its penCHANt for international 'bridge-building' and multilateralism. With regard to the Middle East, South Africa has frequently offered itself as a mediator in the region's various conflicts and continues to do so. However, the argument proposed here is that there is an 'anti-imperialist' strain in South Africa's foreign policy that renders it unlikely to be regarded as an impartial broker in the various Middle East conflicts. South Africa's middle power proclivities, …


On The Evaluation Of The Joint Distribution Of Order Statistics, Koon Shing Kwong, Yiu Man Chan Aug 2008

On The Evaluation Of The Joint Distribution Of Order Statistics, Koon Shing Kwong, Yiu Man Chan

Research Collection School Of Economics

Dunnett and Tamhane [Dunnett, C.W., Tamhane, A.C., 1992. A step-up multiple test procedure. J. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 87, 162-170.] proposed a step-up procedure for comparing k treatments with a control and showed that the step-up procedure is more powerful than its counterpart single step and step-down procedures. Since then, several modified step-up procedures have been suggested to deal with different testing environments. In order to establish those step-up procedures, it is necessary to derive approaches for evaluating the joint distribution of the order statistics. In some cases, experimenters may have difficulty in applying those step-up procedures in multiple hypothesis testing …


Limit Theory For Explosively Cointegrated Systems, Peter C. B. Phillips, Tassos Magdalinos Aug 2008

Limit Theory For Explosively Cointegrated Systems, Peter C. B. Phillips, Tassos Magdalinos

Research Collection School Of Economics

A limit theory is developed for multivariate regression in an explosive cointegrated system. The asymptotic behavior of the least squares estimator of the cointegrating coefficients is found to depend upon the precise relationship between the explosive regressors. When the eigenvalues of the autoregressive matrix Θ are distinct, the centered least squares estimator has an exponential Θn rate of convergence and a mixed normal limit distribution. No central limit theory is applicable here, and Gaussian innovations are assumed. On the other hand, when some regressors exhibit common explosive behavior, a different mixed normal limiting distribution is derived with rate of convergence …


Regression Asymptotics Using Martingale Convergence Methods, Rustam Ibragimov, Peter C. B. Phillips Aug 2008

Regression Asymptotics Using Martingale Convergence Methods, Rustam Ibragimov, Peter C. B. Phillips

Research Collection School Of Economics

Weak convergence of partial sums and multilinear forms in independent random variables and linear processes and their nonlinear analogues to stochastic integrals now plays a major role in nonstationary time series and has been central to the development of unit root econometrics. The present paper develops a new and conceptually simple method for obtaining such forms of convergence. The method relies on the fact that the econometric quantities of interest involve discrete time martingales or semimartingales and shows how in the limit these quantities become continuous martingales and semimartingales. The limit theory itself uses very general convergence results for semimartingales …


A Welfare Analysis Of Capital Account Liberalization, Jürgen Von Hagen, Haiping Zhang Aug 2008

A Welfare Analysis Of Capital Account Liberalization, Jürgen Von Hagen, Haiping Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

We develop a model of a small open economy with credit market frictions to analyze the consequences of capital account liberalization. We show that financial opening facilitates the inflows of cheap foreign funds and improves production efficiency. Reforms increasing labor market exibility can further improve such efficiency gains. However, capital account liberalization also has important distributional consequences. Specifically, it may be impossible to use public transfers to fully compensate the loss of those negatively affected by capital account liberalization. This explains why financial opening often meets fierce opposition even though it leads to efficiency gains for the economy as a …


When ‘Good Good’ Can Be Bad, M. Thulasidas Aug 2008

When ‘Good Good’ Can Be Bad, M. Thulasidas

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Should we embrace politeness, as Hollywood would have us practise it?


Time For Singapore To Relook Abortion Law, Seow Hon Tan Jul 2008

Time For Singapore To Relook Abortion Law, Seow Hon Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

No abstract provided.


Discussion Of Do The Biggest Aisles Serve Brighter Future? Implications Of Global Retail Chains' Presence For Romania, Davin Chor, Beata Javor, Li Xue Jul 2008

Discussion Of Do The Biggest Aisles Serve Brighter Future? Implications Of Global Retail Chains' Presence For Romania, Davin Chor, Beata Javor, Li Xue

Research Collection School Of Economics

No abstract provided.


The Rise Of Agrarian Capitalism With Chinese Characteristics: Agricultural Modernization, Agribusiness And Collective Land Rights, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson Jul 2008

The Rise Of Agrarian Capitalism With Chinese Characteristics: Agricultural Modernization, Agribusiness And Collective Land Rights, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The article discusses the agricultural transformation taking place in the rural areas of China. Details about the Chinese laws regarding rural reform and the effect they have had on rural Chinese farmers and families are included. The authors examine the expansion of agrarian capitalism in China and describe the rise of agribusiness in rural Chinese areas. The practices of Chinese agribusinesses and the Chinese land rights laws are explored. The relationships between individual farmers and agribusinesses is also examined.


The New Securocracy And The "Police Concept" Of Public Sector Worker Identity, Cliff Oswick, Stephen Matthias Harney, Gerard Hanlon Jul 2008

The New Securocracy And The "Police Concept" Of Public Sector Worker Identity, Cliff Oswick, Stephen Matthias Harney, Gerard Hanlon

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In recent years we have seen the emergence of a "new securocracy," a generalization of responsibility for fighting terror within the public sector. Here we consider the nature and extent of this securocratic shift. In particular, the identity implications for the public sector worker are explored and we contend that there is an inherent tension between "serving" and "policing" the public in many public sector jobs. We also discuss the way in which a securocratic identity is simultaneously embraced and resisted. Finally, we present some tentative insights into an alternative way of thinking about identity work, which offers a means …


On Profiling Blogs With Representative Entries, Jinfeng Zhuang, Steven C. H. Hoi, Aixin Sun Jul 2008

On Profiling Blogs With Representative Entries, Jinfeng Zhuang, Steven C. H. Hoi, Aixin Sun

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With an explosive growth of blogs, information seeking in blogosphere becomes more and more challenging. One example task is to find the most relevant topical blogs against a given query or an existing blog. Such a task requires concise representation of blogs for effective and efficient searching and matching. In this paper, we investigate a new problem of profiling a blog by choosing a set of m most representative entries from the blog, where m is a predefined number that is application-dependent. With the set of selected representative entries, applications on blogs avoid handling hundreds or even thousands of entries …


Numerical Analysis Of Non-Constant Pure Rate Of Time Preference: A Model Of Climate Policy, Tomoki Fujii, Larry Karp Jul 2008

Numerical Analysis Of Non-Constant Pure Rate Of Time Preference: A Model Of Climate Policy, Tomoki Fujii, Larry Karp

Research Collection School Of Economics

When current decisions affect welfare in the far-distant future, as with climate change, the use of a declining pure rate of time preference (PRTP) provides potentially important modeling flexibility. The difficulty of analyzing models with non-constant PRTP limits their application. We describe and provide software (available online) to implement an algorithm to numerically obtain a Markov perfect equilibrium for an optimal control problem with non-constant PRTP. We apply this software to a simplified version of the numerical climate change model used in the Stern Review. For our calibration, the policy recommendations are less sensitive to the PRTP than widely believed. …


Time For Singapore To Relook Abortion Law, Seow Hon Tan Jul 2008

Time For Singapore To Relook Abortion Law, Seow Hon Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

No abstract provided.


Image Worship In Chinese Popular Religion, Margaret Chan Jul 2008

Image Worship In Chinese Popular Religion, Margaret Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.


Nonparametric Prewhitening Estimators For Conditional Quantiles, Liangjun Su, Aman Ullah Jul 2008

Nonparametric Prewhitening Estimators For Conditional Quantiles, Liangjun Su, Aman Ullah

Research Collection School Of Economics

We define a nonparametric prewhitening method for estimating conditional quantiles based on local linear quantile regression. We characterize the bias, variance and asymptotic normality of the proposed estimator. Under weak conditions our estimator can achieve bias reduction and have the same variance as the local linear quantile estimators. A small set of Monte Carlo simulations is carried out to illustrate the performance of our estimators. An application to US gross domestic product data demonstrates the usefulness of our methodology.


Women Warriors In Asia, Tobias Frederik Rettig, Vina Lanzona Jul 2008

Women Warriors In Asia, Tobias Frederik Rettig, Vina Lanzona

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.


A Semiparametric Stochastic Volatility Model, Jun Yu Jul 2008

A Semiparametric Stochastic Volatility Model, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper examines how volatility responds to return news in the context of stochastic volatility (SV) using a nonparametric method. The correlation structure in the classical leverage SV model is generalized based on a linear spline. In the new model the correlation between the return innovation and volatility innovation is dependent on the type of news arrived to the market. Theoretical properties of the proposed model are examined. A simulation-based maximum likelihood method is developed to estimate the new model. Simulations show that the estimation method provides reliable parameter estimates. The new model is fitted to daily and weekly data …


Smu Names New Institute After The Late Mr Sim Kee Boon, Singapore Management University Jul 2008

Smu Names New Institute After The Late Mr Sim Kee Boon, Singapore Management University

SMU Press Releases and News

No abstract provided.


Smu Celebrates Fifth Batch Of 1,167 Graduates, Singapore Management University Jul 2008

Smu Celebrates Fifth Batch Of 1,167 Graduates, Singapore Management University

SMU Press Releases and News

No abstract provided.


Senior Team Attributes And Organizational Ambidexterity: The Moderating Role Of Transformational Leadership, Justin J. P. Jansen, Gerard George, Frans A. J. Van Den Bosch, Henk W. Volberda Jul 2008

Senior Team Attributes And Organizational Ambidexterity: The Moderating Role Of Transformational Leadership, Justin J. P. Jansen, Gerard George, Frans A. J. Van Den Bosch, Henk W. Volberda

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Organizations capable of pursuing exploration and exploitation simultaneously have been suggested to obtain superior performance. Combining both types of activities and achieving organizational ambidexterity, however, leads to the presence of multiple and often conflicting goals, and poses considerable challenges to senior teams in ambidextrous organizations. This study explores the role of senior team attributes and leadership behaviour in reconciling conflicting interests among senior team members and achieving organizational ambidexterity. Findings indicate that a senior team shared vision and contingency rewards are associated with a firm's ability to combine high levels of exploratory and exploitative innovations. In addition, our study shows …


Earnings Asymmetric Timeliness And Shareholder Distributions, Richard M. Frankel, Yan Sun, Rong Wang Jul 2008

Earnings Asymmetric Timeliness And Shareholder Distributions, Richard M. Frankel, Yan Sun, Rong Wang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We study whether more asymmetrically timely earnings constrain payouts to shareholders in the presence of bad news. Our goal is to provide evidence on the ex post contracting benefits of accounting conservatism. We distinguish between cash flow asymmetric timeliness and accrual asymmetric timeliness to examine how each relates to asymmetric sensitivity of shareholder payouts. We find that only the asymmetric timeliness of cash flows is significantly related to the asymmetric sensitivity of shareholder payouts. Other measures of conservatism (earnings skewness and accumulated nonoperating accruals) are also not significantly related to the sensitivity of shareholder payouts given bad news. These results …


Mapping The Multi-Tiered Impacts Of The Growth Of It Industries In India: A Combined Scale-And-Scope Externalities Perspective, Robert J. Kauffman, Ajay Kumar Jul 2008

Mapping The Multi-Tiered Impacts Of The Growth Of It Industries In India: A Combined Scale-And-Scope Externalities Perspective, Robert J. Kauffman, Ajay Kumar

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Externalities occur among agglomerated firms. Scale externalities occur between firms in the same industry. Scope externalities occur when heterogeneous industries are collocated. Combined scale-and-scope externalities exist when the scale of one industry is beneficial to the growth of another collocated industry. In the Sein and Haridranath (2004) framework of information technology (IT) impacts on development, scale externalities correspond to second-order impacts, while combined scale and scope eternalities correspond to third-order impacts. We use an agglomeration perspective to explain the growth of IT industries in India. We study growth patterns of four specific IT industries: computer and peripheral equipment manufacturing, semiconductor …


Singapore Company Promises Dialysis Treatment Breakthrough, Knowledge@Smu Jun 2008

Singapore Company Promises Dialysis Treatment Breakthrough, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

If all goes well, two years from now kidney patients will get a new lease of life when a portable, artificial kidney is launched by a Singapore-based company. AWAK Technologies was formed in 2007 to commercialise a technology that allows people suffering from kidney failure to lead a life that is close to normal. AWAK CEO Neo Kok Beng spoke recently on “Disrupting the Kidney Dialysis Market: Revolutionary Technologies & Business Models” at a CEO Talks forum organised by the Wee Kim Wee Centre, Singapore Management University.


Time-Varying Incentives In The Mutual Fund Industry, Jacques Olivier, Anthony S. Tay Jun 2008

Time-Varying Incentives In The Mutual Fund Industry, Jacques Olivier, Anthony S. Tay

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper re-examines the incentives of mutual fund managers arising from investor flows. We provide evidence that the convexity of the flow-performance relationship varies with economic activity. We show that the effect is economically large and is not driven by abnormal years. We test two possible channels through which this pattern may arise. We investigate implications of the timevarying convexity for the incentives of managers to alter strategically the risk of their portfolios. We provide evidence that poor mid-year performers increase the risk of the portfolio only when economic activity is strong. Finally, we briefly discuss some methodological implications.


Inference For General Parametric Functions In Box-Cox-Type Transformation Models, Zhenlin Yang, Eden Ka-Ho Wu, Anthony F. Desmond Jun 2008

Inference For General Parametric Functions In Box-Cox-Type Transformation Models, Zhenlin Yang, Eden Ka-Ho Wu, Anthony F. Desmond

Research Collection School Of Economics

The authors propose a simple but general method of inference for a parametric function of the Box-Cox-type transformation model. Their approach is built upon the classical normal theory but takes parameter estimation into account. It quickly leads to test statistics and confidence intervals for a linear combination of scaled or unscaled regression coefficients, as well as for the survivor function and marginal effects on the median or other quantile functions of an original response. The authors show through simulations that the finite-sample performance of their method is often superior to the delta method, and that their approach is robust to …


Behavioral Explanations Of Trading Volume And Short-Horizon Price Patterns: An Investigation Of Seven Asia-Pacific Markets, David K. Ding, Thomas H. Mclnish, Udomsak Wongchoti Jun 2008

Behavioral Explanations Of Trading Volume And Short-Horizon Price Patterns: An Investigation Of Seven Asia-Pacific Markets, David K. Ding, Thomas H. Mclnish, Udomsak Wongchoti

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We investigate whether behavioral postulations offer any implicit explanation of the country-varying relation between trading volume and price pattern among short-horizon winners/losers in seven Pacific-Basin markets during the period 1990 to 2000. Our findings lend credence to the Lee and Swaminathan [Lee, C. and Swaminathan, B., 2000. Price momentum and trading volume, Journal of Finance 55, 2017-2069.] Momentum Life Cycle explanation that high (low) volume winners (losers) are more likely to experience price reversals, whereas high (low) volume losers (winners), price momentum, in the subsequent period. This observation is especially pronounced in Hong Kong. Other models such as those based …