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Full-Text Articles in Economics

Dynamic Poverty Decomposition Analysis: An Application To The Philippines, Tomoki Fujii Feb 2014

Dynamic Poverty Decomposition Analysis: An Application To The Philippines, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper, we propose a new method of poverty decomposition. Our method remedies the shortcomings of existing methods and has some desirable properties such as time reversion consistency and subperiod additivity. It integrates the existing methods of growth redistribution decomposition and sector-based decomposition, because it allows us to decompose the change in poverty into growth and redistribution components for each group (e.g., regions or sectors) in the economy. We extend our method to include six components and provide an empirical application to the Philippines for the period 1985–2009.

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X-Differencing And Dynamic Panel Model Estimation, Chirok Han, Peter C. B. Phillips, Donggyu Sul Feb 2014

X-Differencing And Dynamic Panel Model Estimation, Chirok Han, Peter C. B. Phillips, Donggyu Sul

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper introduces a new estimation method for dynamic panel models with fixed effects and AR(p) idiosyncratic errors. The proposed estimator uses a novel form of systematic differencing, called X-differencing, that eliminates fixed effects and retains information and signal strength in cases where there is a root at or near unity. The resulting "panel fully aggregated" estimator (PFAE) is obtained by pooled least squares on the system of X-differenced equations. The method is simple to implement, consistent for all parameter values, including unit root cases, and has strong asymptotic and finite sample performance characteristics that dominate other procedures, such as …

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Reinterpreting King Solomon's Problem: Malice And Mechanism Design, Brishti Guha Feb 2014

Reinterpreting King Solomon's Problem: Malice And Mechanism Design, Brishti Guha

Research Collection School Of Economics

I argue for an alternative interpretation of King Solomon's problem in terms of one of the two claimants being “malicious”. A “malicious” claimant places no intrinsic value on the object but derives utility from depriving the rival claimant. This new interpretation permits a simpler solution than those considered in the literature; I derive a mechanism that induces truthful revelation where the equilibrium involves a single round of elimination of weakly dominated strategies, and no monetary transfers. I consider extensions which allow for the malicious claimant to also place some low but positive intrinsic valuation on the object; I also discuss …

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Levers For Change -- Philanthropy In Select South East Asian Countries, Prapti Upadhyay Anand, Crystal Hayling Jan 2014

Levers For Change -- Philanthropy In Select South East Asian Countries, Prapti Upadhyay Anand, Crystal Hayling

Lien Centre for Social Innovation: Research

Explosive economic growth in South East Asia has resulted in unparalleled wealth creation. Forbes magazine reports there are 386 billionaires in the Asia Pacific region. While the region’s emerging economies report hopeful signs of a broadening middle class, income inequality is rising faster than living standards for the majority. There is widespread agreement that the stark income disparity must be addressed or it risks threatening political and social stability. For those interested in the social economy, key questions remain unanswered: first, will philanthropic giving match the fast pace of wealth accumulation, and second, will that philanthropy be strategic and targeted …

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Financial Development, International Capital Flows, And Aggregate Output, Jurgen Von Hagen, Haiping Zhang Jan 2014

Financial Development, International Capital Flows, And Aggregate Output, Jurgen Von Hagen, Haiping Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

We develop a tractable two-country overlapping-generations model and show that cross-country differences in financial development can explain three recent empirical patterns of international capital flows: Financial capital flows from relatively poor to relatively rich countries, while foreign direct investment flows in the opposite direction; net capital flows go from poor to rich countries; despite its negative net international investment positions, the United States receives a positive net investment income. International capital mobility affects output in each country directly through the size of domestic investment and indirectly through the aggregate saving rate. Under certain conditions, the indirect effect may dominate the …

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Nonparametric Testing For Anomaly Effects In Empirical Asset Pricing Models, Sainan Jin, Liangjun Su, Yonghui Zhang Jan 2014

Nonparametric Testing For Anomaly Effects In Empirical Asset Pricing Models, Sainan Jin, Liangjun Su, Yonghui Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper we propose a class of nonparametric tests for anomaly effects in empirical asset pricing models in the framework of nonparametric panel data models with interactive fixed effects. Our approach has two prominent features: one is the adoption of nonparametric component to capture the anomaly effects of some asset-specific characteristics, and the other is the flexible treatment of both observed/constructed and unobserved common factors. By estimating the unknown factors, betas, and nonparametric function simultaneously, our setup is robust to misspecification of functional form and common factors and avoids the well-known “error-in-variable” (EIV) problem associated with the commonly used …

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Specification Testing For Transformation Models, Arthur Lewbel, Xun Lu, Liangjun Su Jan 2014

Specification Testing For Transformation Models, Arthur Lewbel, Xun Lu, Liangjun Su

Research Collection School Of Economics

Consider a nonseparable model Y=R(X,U) where Y and X are observed, while U is unobserved and conditionally independent of X. This paper provides the first nonparametric test of whether R takes the form of a transformation model, meaning that Y is monotonic in the sum of a function of X plus a function of U. Transformation models of this form are commonly assumed in economics, including, e.g., standard specifications of duration models and hedonic pricing models. Our test statistic is asymptotically normal under local alternatives and consistent against nonparametric alternatives. Monte Carlo experiments show that our test performs well in …

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A New Approach To Bayesian Hypothesis Testing, Yong Li, Tao Zeng, Jun Yu Jan 2014

A New Approach To Bayesian Hypothesis Testing, Yong Li, Tao Zeng, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper a new Bayesian approach is proposed to test a point null hypothesis based on the deviance in a decision-theoretical framework. The proposed test statistic may be regarded as the Bayesian version of the likelihood ratio test and appeals in practical applications with three desirable properties. First, it is immune to Jeffreys’ concern about the use of improper priors. Second, it avoids Jeffreys–Lindley’s paradox, Third, it is easy to compute and its threshold value is easily derived, facilitating the implementation in practice. The method is illustrated using some real examples in economics and finance. It is found that …

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Job Market Signaling With Human Capital Investment, Gea Myoung Lee, Seung Han Yoo Jan 2014

Job Market Signaling With Human Capital Investment, Gea Myoung Lee, Seung Han Yoo

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper, we consider the social value of signaling by recasting the Spence's (1973) signaling model in a causal relationship: human capital investment is necessary to reduce the marginal cost of signaling. Our model contains distinct features: (i) the choice of signaling a§ects the level of human capital investment and (ii) the proportion of high and low type in the entire workers is endogenously determined. From the perspective of welfare, we compare two contrasting forms of signaling, separating and pooling, and Önd that the choice of a proper form of signaling is dependent on how each signaling induces the …

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Optimal Estimation Of Cointegrated Systems With Irrelevant Instruments, Peter C. B. Phillips Jan 2014

Optimal Estimation Of Cointegrated Systems With Irrelevant Instruments, Peter C. B. Phillips

Research Collection School Of Economics

It has been known since Phillips and Hansen (1990) that cointegrated systems can be consistently estimated using stochastic trend instruments that are independent of the system variables. A similar phenomenon occurs with deterministically trending instruments. The present work shows that such "irrelevant" deterministic trend instruments may be systematically used to produce asymptotically efficient estimates of a cointegrated system. The approach is convenient in practice, involves only linear instrumental variables estimation, and is a straightforward one step procedure with no loss of degrees of freedom in estimation. Simulations reveal that the procedure works well in practice both in terms of point …

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Minimum Investment Requirement, Financial Integration And Economic (In)Stability: A Refinement To Matsuyama (2004), Haiping Zhang Dec 2013

Minimum Investment Requirement, Financial Integration And Economic (In)Stability: A Refinement To Matsuyama (2004), Haiping Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This note proposes a simple, more precise, necessary condition for symmetry breaking in Matsuyama (Financial Market Globalization, Symmetry-Breaking, and Endogenous Inequality of Nations, Econometrica, 2004 ), i.e., the positive interest rate response to income changes, which essentially arises from the assumptions of financial frictions and minimum investment size requirement of individual projects. This condition also holds under the more general settings. Thus, this note o ers an empirically testable hypothesis, i.e., Matsuyama's symmetry breaking is more likely, if the interest rate response to income changes is positive and sufficiently large.

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Identifying Latent Structures In Panel Data, Liangjun Su, Zhentao Shi, Peter C. B. Phillips Dec 2013

Identifying Latent Structures In Panel Data, Liangjun Su, Zhentao Shi, Peter C. B. Phillips

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper provides a novel mechanism for identifying and estimating latent group structures in panel data using penalized regression techniques. We focus on linear models where the slope parameters are heterogeneous across groups but homogenous within a group and the group membership is unknown. Two approaches are considered -- penalized least squares (PLS) for models without endogenous regressors, and penalized GMM (PGMM) for models with endogeneity. In both cases we develop a new variant of Lasso called classifier-Lasso (C-Lasso) that serves to shrink individual coefficients to the unknown group-specific coefficients. C-Lasso achieves simultaneous classification and consistent estimation in a single …

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Quasi-Maximum Likelihood Estimation For Spatial Panel Data Regressions, Zhenlin Yang Dec 2013

Quasi-Maximum Likelihood Estimation For Spatial Panel Data Regressions, Zhenlin Yang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This article considers quasi-maximum likelihood estimations (QMLE) for two spatial panel data regression models: mixed effects model with spatial errors and transformed mixed effects model (where response and covariates are transformed) with spatial errors. One aim of transformation is to normalize the data, thus the transformed models are more robust with respect to the normality assumption compared with the standard ones. QMLE method provides additional protection against violation of normality assumption. Asymptotic properties of the QMLEs are investigated. Numerical illustrations are provided.

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A State Space Model Approach To Integrated Covariance Matrix Estimation With High Frequency Data, Cheng Liu, Cheng Yong Tang Dec 2013

A State Space Model Approach To Integrated Covariance Matrix Estimation With High Frequency Data, Cheng Liu, Cheng Yong Tang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We consider a state space model approach forhigh frequency financial data analysis. An expectationmaximization(EM) algorithm is developed for estimatingthe integrated covariance matrix of the assets. The statespace model with the EM algorithm can handle noisy financialdata with correlated microstructure noises. Difficultydue to asynchronous and irregularly spaced trading data ofmultiple assets can be naturally overcome by consideringthe problem in a scenario with missing data. Since the statespace model approach requires no data synchronization, norecord in the financial data is deleted so that it efficientlyincorporates information from all observations. Empiricaldata analysis supports the general specification of the statespace model, and simulations confirm …

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Testing Homogeneity In Panel Data Models With Interactive Fixed Effects, Liangjun Su, Qihui Chen Dec 2013

Testing Homogeneity In Panel Data Models With Interactive Fixed Effects, Liangjun Su, Qihui Chen

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper proposes a residual-based LM test for slope homogeneity in large dimensional panel data models with interactive fixed effects. We first run the panel regression under the null to obtain the restricted residuals, and then use them to construct our LM test statistic. We show that after being appropriately centered and scaled, our test statistic is asymptotically normally distributed under the null and a sequence of Pitman local alternatives. The asymptotic distributional theories are established under fairly general conditions which allow for both lagged dependent variables and conditional heteroskedasticity of unknown form by relying on the concept of conditional …

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Testing For Indirect Reciprocity In Charitable Activities, Christine Ho Dec 2013

Testing For Indirect Reciprocity In Charitable Activities, Christine Ho

Research Collection School Of Economics

We propose a test of indirect reciprocity using US data on charitable activities in terms of both time and money. We find that expecting help from friends or relatives in the future positively affects the probability and the amount of charitable activities performed.

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Predictive Regression Under Various Degrees Of Persistence And Robust Long-Horizon Regression, Peter C. B. Phillips, Ji Hyung Lee Dec 2013

Predictive Regression Under Various Degrees Of Persistence And Robust Long-Horizon Regression, Peter C. B. Phillips, Ji Hyung Lee

Research Collection School Of Economics

The paper proposes a novel inference procedure for long-horizon predictive regression with persistent regressors, allowing the autoregressive roots to lie in a wide vicinity of unity. The invalidity of conventional tests when regressors are persistent has led to a large literature dealing with inference in predictive regressions with local to unity regressors. Magdalinos and Phillips (2009b) recently developed a new framework of extended IV procedures (IVX) that enables robtist chi-square testing for a wider class of persistent regressors. We extend this robust procedure to an even wider parameter space in the vicinity of unity and apply the methods to long-horizon …

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Estimation Of Time-Varying Adjusted Probability Of Informed Trading And Probability Of Symmetric Order-Flow Shock, Daniel Preve, Yiu Kuen Tse Nov 2013

Estimation Of Time-Varying Adjusted Probability Of Informed Trading And Probability Of Symmetric Order-Flow Shock, Daniel Preve, Yiu Kuen Tse

Research Collection School Of Economics

Recently Duarte and Young (2009) study the probability of informed trading (PIN) proposed by Easley et al. (2002) and decompose it into two parts: the adjusted PIN (APIN) as a measure of asymmetric information and the probability of symmetric order-flow shock (PSOS) as a measure of illiquidity. They provide some cross-section estimates of these measures using daily data over annual periods. In this paper we propose a method to estimate daily APIN and PSOS by extending the method in Tay et al. (2009) using high-frequency transaction data. Our empirical results show that while PIN is positively contemporaneously correlated with variance, …

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Relook Link Between Low Wages And Foreign Workers, Hian Teck Hoon Nov 2013

Relook Link Between Low Wages And Foreign Workers, Hian Teck Hoon

Research Collection School Of Economics

He felt that the commonplace idea that the huge inflow of foreign workers in the past decade caused a stagnation and even decline in real wage earnings of Singaporean workers in the bottom half of the income distribution was flawed. He argued that real wage earnings of the median worker actually increased when the number of inflows of foreign workers was reaching its peak. Prof Hoon thus felt that Singapore must now find a means to gear its political and economic institutions to continue to embrace economic openness in the next half-century, in order to be able to deliver good …

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Egalitarian Division Under Leontief Preferences, Jin Li, Jingyi Xue Nov 2013

Egalitarian Division Under Leontief Preferences, Jin Li, Jingyi Xue

Research Collection School Of Economics

We consider the problem of fairly dividing l divisible goods among n agents with the generalized Leontief preferences. We propose and characterize the class of generalized egalitarian rules which satisfy efficiency, group strategy-proofness, anonymity, resource monotonicity, population monotonicity, envy-freeness and consistency. On the Leontief domain, our rules generalize the egalitarian-equivalent rules with reference bundles. We also extend our rules to agent-specific and endowment-specific egalitarian rules. The former is a larger class of rules satisfying all the previous properties except anonymity and envy-freeness. The latter is a class of efficient, group strategy-proof, anonymous and individually rational rules when the resources are …

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An Epidemiological Approach To Opinion And Price-Volume Dynamics, Dong Hong, Harrison G. Hong, Andrei Ungureanu Nov 2013

An Epidemiological Approach To Opinion And Price-Volume Dynamics, Dong Hong, Harrison G. Hong, Andrei Ungureanu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We develop a simple and tractable model of opinions and price-volume dynamics based on a word-of-mouth communication process widely used in epidemiology. Risk-averse investors have different opinions depending on whether they heard the news from a friend. Opinions initially diverge and then converge over time as news spreads, which leads to price adjustment and trading volume. News released to many leads to an expected difusion rate (the change in the fraction of investors with the news) that declines with time. But news initially released to few leads to an expected diffusion rate that initially increases in time and only then …

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From Coercion To Politics To Law: The Evolution Of Property Rights Protection, Fali Huang Nov 2013

From Coercion To Politics To Law: The Evolution Of Property Rights Protection, Fali Huang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper shows how property rights security improves over time as a result of increasing legal quality and political democratization in a political economy context, where political and legal institutions adapt to evolving factor composition of land and capital in the dynamic economic development process. There seems to exist a clear sequence of di⁄erent forms of protection in that it is unlikely to have a strong rule of law with an exploitative political regime, or to have a democratic political system when the distribution of potential coercive power is too skewed. The routine form of protection thus shifts from coercion …

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Limit Theory For An Explosive Autoregressive Process, Xiaohu Wang, Jun Yu Nov 2013

Limit Theory For An Explosive Autoregressive Process, Xiaohu Wang, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

Large sample properties are studied for a first-order autoregression (AR(1)) with a root greater than unity. It is shown that, contrary to the AR coefficient, the least-squares (LS) estimator of the intercept and its t-statistic are asymptotically normal without requiring the Gaussian error distribution, and hence an invariance principle applies. The coefficient based test and the t test have better power for testing the hypothesis of zero intercept in the explosive process than in the stationary process.

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Singapore's Housing Policies: 1960-2013, Sock Yong Phang, Kyunghwan Kim Nov 2013

Singapore's Housing Policies: 1960-2013, Sock Yong Phang, Kyunghwan Kim

Research Collection School Of Economics

The focus of this case study is on the important role of real estate and housing policies in Singapore’s economic development. In the sphere of housing policy, Singapore is known for its high homeownership rates, the very significant role played by the government in housing supply and housing finance, and the wealth that has been created and distributed in the process.

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China At The Crossroads, Singapore Management University Oct 2013

China At The Crossroads, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

When villagers in Wukan village (乌坎) in Southern China protested against illegal land grabs in September 2011, it highlighted a main source of tension in China: the displacement of rural Chinese by rapid urbanisation, sometimes done illegally. The Seige of Wukan was a case in point, where local Communist Party officials had sold communally held farmland

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Overcoming Fear Of The ‘Other’, Tan K. B. Eugene Oct 2013

Overcoming Fear Of The ‘Other’, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In a commentary about the political and economic changes in Myanmar, SMU Associate Professor of Law and NMP Eugene Tan opined that deep-seated sectarian conflict could prove to be the Achilles heel of Myanmar’s reforms. He noted that the mere introduction of democracy anywhere will not miraculously transform voters into fair-minded citizens and that democracy requires the rule of law, a minimal level of education and political maturity, or it would degenerate into the tyranny of majority rule where might is right. Associate Prof Tan said that Myanmar must guard against this tendency and embrace the rich diversity in its …

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Nonparametric Regression Estimation With General Parametric Error Covariance: A More Efficient Two-Step Estimator, Liangjun Su, Aman Ullah, Yun Wang Oct 2013

Nonparametric Regression Estimation With General Parametric Error Covariance: A More Efficient Two-Step Estimator, Liangjun Su, Aman Ullah, Yun Wang

Research Collection School Of Economics

Recently Martins-Filho and Yao (J Multivar Anal 100:309–333, 2009) have proposed a two-step estimator of nonparametric regression function with parametric error covariance and demonstrate that it is more efficient than the usual LLE. In the present paper we demonstrate that MY’s estimator can be further improved. First, we extend MY’s estimator to the multivariate case, and also establish the asymptotic theorem for the slope estimators; second, we propose a more efficient two-step estimator for nonparametric regression function with general parametric error covariance, and develop the corresponding asymptotic theorems. Monte Carlo study shows the relative efficiency loss of MY’s estimator in …

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Detecting Bubbles In Hong Kong Residential Property Market, Matthew S. Yiu, Jun Yu, Lu Jin Oct 2013

Detecting Bubbles In Hong Kong Residential Property Market, Matthew S. Yiu, Jun Yu, Lu Jin

Research Collection School Of Economics

This study uses a newly developed bubble detection method (Phillips, Shi, and Yu, 2011) to identify real estate bubbles in the Hong Kong residential property market. Our empirical results reveal several positive bubbles in the Hong Kong residential property market, including one in 1995, a stronger one in 1997, yet another one in 2004, and a more recent one in 2008. In addition, the method identifies two negative bubbles in the data, one in 2000 and the other one in 2001. These empirical results continue to be valid for the mass segment and the luxury segment. However, this method has …

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An Exploratory Study On The Adoption And Use Of Ict In Myanmar, Sim Kim Lau, Graham K. Winley, Sim Yee Lau, Kim Song Tan Oct 2013

An Exploratory Study On The Adoption And Use Of Ict In Myanmar, Sim Kim Lau, Graham K. Winley, Sim Yee Lau, Kim Song Tan

Research Collection School Of Economics

This exploratory study investigates the adoption and use of information and communication technologies in Myanmar by examining the nature and structure of the information technology profession. The investigation is based on a theoretical framework consisting of three components: domains of information technology professional expertise; the scope of the information technology professional’s knowledge, skills and experience; and specific knowledge and skills associated with the domains of professional expertise. The findings show that specialist skills in systems development, database, network and communications are important. This paper also provides insights that are not found in current literature which investigates information technology skills in …

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Minimum Wage In A Deflationary Economy: The Japanese Experience, 1994-2003, Ryo Kambayashi, Daiji Kawaguchi, Ken Yamada Oct 2013

Minimum Wage In A Deflationary Economy: The Japanese Experience, 1994-2003, Ryo Kambayashi, Daiji Kawaguchi, Ken Yamada

Research Collection School Of Economics

The statutory minimum wage in Japan has increased continuously for a few decades until the early 2000s even during a period of deflation. This paper examines the impact of the minimum wage on wage and employment outcomes under this unusual circumstance. We find that the minimum-wage increase resulted in the compression of the lower tail of the wage distribution among women and that the wage compression is only partially attributable to the loss of employment. The continuous increase in the minimum wage accounts for one half of the reduction in lower-tail inequality that occurred among women during the period between …

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