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

Economics Commons™

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

Singapore Management University

Discipline
Keyword
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type

Articles 1531 - 1560 of 2456

Full-Text Articles in Economics

Welfare Reform And At-Risk Mothers' Labour Supply, Christine Ho Jun 2013

Welfare Reform And At-Risk Mothers' Labour Supply, Christine Ho

Research Collection School Of Economics

We analyse the impact of the early 1990s welfare waivers and the 1996 TANF reform in the United States on at-risk mothers' labour supply behaviour using the PSID. We find that whereas the welfare waivers had limited impacts on at-risk mothers, the TANF reform played an important role in encouraging those mothers to increase their labour supply at the intensive margin.

Go to article

Solving Myanmar’S Catch-22, Sim Yee Lau, Kim Song Tan Jun 2013

Solving Myanmar’S Catch-22, Sim Yee Lau, Kim Song Tan

Research Collection School Of Economics

No abstract provided.

Go to article

Political Risk And Institutional Quality Difference Across Countries: Impacts On Fdi By Multinational Firms, Pao Li Chang, Chia-Hui Lu Jun 2013

Political Risk And Institutional Quality Difference Across Countries: Impacts On Fdi By Multinational Firms, Pao Li Chang, Chia-Hui Lu

Research Collection School Of Economics

No abstract provided.

Go to article

How Does Childbirth Alter Intrahousehold Resource Allocation?: Evidence From Japan, Tomoki Fujii, Ryuichiro Ishikawa Jun 2013

How Does Childbirth Alter Intrahousehold Resource Allocation?: Evidence From Japan, Tomoki Fujii, Ryuichiro Ishikawa

Research Collection School Of Economics

Exploiting unique panel data that include direct measurements of resource allocation within households, we investigated the impact of childbirth on intrahousehold allocation for married Japanese couples. Based on a collective model of the household, we developed reduced-form and structural-form estimation equations that allow us to focus on private goods to track the changes in intrahousehold resource allocation. We found one additional child is associated with a reduction in the wife's private expenditure share by at least two percentage points. This may be because she substitutes more say in decisions on the children for her own private expenditure share.

Go to article

Cost-Effective Estimation Of The Population Mean Using Prediction Estimators, Tomoki Fujii, Roy Van Der Weide Jun 2013

Cost-Effective Estimation Of The Population Mean Using Prediction Estimators, Tomoki Fujii, Roy Van Der Weide

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper considers the prediction estimator as an efficient estimator for the population mean. The study may be viewed as an earlier study that proved that the prediction estimator based on the iteratively weighted least squares estimator outperforms the sample mean. The analysis finds that a certain moment condition must hold in general for the prediction estimator based on a Generalized-Method-of-Moment estimator to be at least as efficient as the sample mean. In an application to cost-effective double sampling, the authors show how prediction estimators may be adopted to maximize statistical precision (minimize financial costs) under a budget constraint (statistical …

Go to article

Parallels Between The U.S. And Asian Property Markets, Singapore Management University May 2013

Parallels Between The U.S. And Asian Property Markets, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

U.S. home prices are on an upswing. What does this mean for the Asian property market?

Go to article

Are Tournaments Optimal Over Piece Rates Under Limited Liability For The Principal?, Kosmas Marinakis, Theofanis Tsoulouhas May 2013

Are Tournaments Optimal Over Piece Rates Under Limited Liability For The Principal?, Kosmas Marinakis, Theofanis Tsoulouhas

Research Collection School Of Economics

A highly acclaimed result is that tournaments are superior to piece rates when the agents are risk averse and their production activities are subject to a relatively large common shock. The reason is that tournaments allow the principal to trade insurance for lower income to the agents. Our analysis shows that this celebrated result does not carry over to the case when a limited liability (bankruptcy) constraint limits the payments the principal can make, provided that the liquidation value of the firm is sufficiently small. This finding has important implications for the vast number of limited liability firms. Even though …

Go to article

Lm Tests Of Spatial Dependence Based On Bootstrap Critical Values, Zhenlin Yang May 2013

Lm Tests Of Spatial Dependence Based On Bootstrap Critical Values, Zhenlin Yang

Research Collection School Of Economics

To test the existence of spatial dependence in an econometric model, a convenient test is the Lagrange Multiplier (LM) test. However, evidence shows that, in finite samples, the LM test referring to asymptotic critical values may suffer from the problems of size distortion and low power, which become worse with a denser spatial weight matrix. In this paper, residual-based bootstrap methods are introduced for asymptotically refined approximations to the finite sample critical values of the LM statistics. Conditions for their validity are clearly laid out and formal justifications are given in general, and in details under several popular spatial LM …

Go to article

Do Singaporeans Spend Too Much On Housing?, Sock Yong Phang May 2013

Do Singaporeans Spend Too Much On Housing?, Sock Yong Phang

Research Collection School Of Economics

According to a 2011 IMF study, Singapore's level of government intervention in housing finance is the highest in the developed world (Slide 3). This level of intervention in housing finance has correspondingly produced the highest level of homeownership amongst advanced countries. This housing outcome is the result of our very unique HDB-CPF housing framework – an institutional framework that was established in the 1960s during the formative period of our country?s history (Slides 4 and 5). Singapore was, at that particular point in time, faced with a situation of chronic housing shortage, low homeownership rates and an underdeveloped housing mortgage …

Go to article

Nonparametric Dynamic Panel Data Models With Interactive Fixed Effects: Sieve Estimation And Specification Testing, Liangjun Su, Yonghui Zhang May 2013

Nonparametric Dynamic Panel Data Models With Interactive Fixed Effects: Sieve Estimation And Specification Testing, Liangjun Su, Yonghui Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper we analyze nonparametric dynamic panel data models with interactive fixed effects, where the predetermined regressors enter the models nonparametrically and the common factors enter the models linearly but with individual specific factor loadings. We consider the issues of estimation and specification testing when both the cross-sectional dimension and the time dimension are large. We propose sieve estimation for the nonparametric function by extending Bai’s (2009) principal component analysis (PCA) to our nonparametric framework. Based on the asymptotic expansion of the Gaussian quasi-log-likelihood function, we derive the convergence rate for the sieve estimator and establish its asymptotic normality. …

Go to article

On Domains That Admit Well-Behaved Strategy-Proof Social Choice Functions, Shurojit Chatterji, Rezmi Sanver, Arunava Sen May 2013

On Domains That Admit Well-Behaved Strategy-Proof Social Choice Functions, Shurojit Chatterji, Rezmi Sanver, Arunava Sen

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper, we investigate domains that admit “well-behaved” strategy-proof social choice functions. We show that if the number of voters is even, then every domain that satisfies a richness condition and admits an anonymous, tops-only, unanimous and strategy-proof social choice function, must be semi-single-peaked. Conversely every semi-single-peaked domain admits an anonymous, tops-only, unanimous and strategy-proof social choice function. Semi-single-peaked domains are generalizations of single-peaked domains on a tree introduced by Demange (1982).

Go to article

A Nonparametric Poolability Test For Panel Data Models With Cross Section Dependence, Sainan Jin, Liangjun Su May 2013

A Nonparametric Poolability Test For Panel Data Models With Cross Section Dependence, Sainan Jin, Liangjun Su

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this article we propose a nonparametric test for poolability in large dimensional semiparametric panel data models with cross-section dependence based on the sieve estimation technique. To construct the test statistic, we only need to estimate the model under the alternative. We establish the asymptotic normal distributions of our test statistic under the null hypothesis of poolability and a sequence of local alternatives, and prove the consistency of our test. We also suggest a bootstrap method as an alternative way to obtain the critical values. A small set of Monte Carlo simulations indicate the test performs reasonably well in finite …

Go to article

Local Linear Gmm Estimation Of Functional Coefficient Iv Models With Application To The Estimation Of Rate Of Return To Schooling, Liangjun Su, Irina Murtazashvili, Aman Ullah Apr 2013

Local Linear Gmm Estimation Of Functional Coefficient Iv Models With Application To The Estimation Of Rate Of Return To Schooling, Liangjun Su, Irina Murtazashvili, Aman Ullah

Research Collection School Of Economics

We consider the local linear GMM estimation of functional coe cient models with a mix of discrete and continuous data and in the presence of endogenous regressors. We establish the asymptotic normality of the estimator and derive the optimal instrumental variable that minimizes the asymptotic variance-covariance matrix among the class of all local linear GMM estimators. Data-dependent bandwidth sequences are also allowed for. We propose a nonparametric test for the constancy of the functional coefficients, study its asymptotic properties under the null hypothesis as well as a sequence of local alternatives and global alternatives, and propose a bootstrap version for …

Go to article

Nonparametric Testing For Asymmetric Information, Liangjun Su, Martin Spindler Apr 2013

Nonparametric Testing For Asymmetric Information, Liangjun Su, Martin Spindler

Research Collection School Of Economics

Asymmetric information is an important phenomenon in many markets and in particular in insurance markets. Testing for asymmetric information has become a very important issue in the literature in the last two decades. Almost all testing procedures that are used in empirical studies are parametric, which may yield misleading conclusions in the case of misspecification of either functional or distributional relationships among the variables of interest. Motivated by the literature on testing conditional independence, we propose a new nonparametric test for asymmetric information, which is applicable in a variety of situations. We demonstrate that the test works reasonably well through …

Go to article

Testing Monotonicity In Unobservables With Panel Data, Liangjun Su, Stefan Hoderlein, Halbert White Apr 2013

Testing Monotonicity In Unobservables With Panel Data, Liangjun Su, Stefan Hoderlein, Halbert White

Research Collection School Of Economics

Monotonicity in a scalar unobservable is a crucial identifying assumption for an important class of nonparametric structural models accommodating unobserved heterogeneity. Tests for this monotonicity have previously been unavailable. This paper proposes and analyzes tests for scalar monotonicity using panel data for structures with and without time-varying unobservables, either partially or fully nonseparable between observables and unobservables. Our nonparametric tests are computationally straightforward, have well behaved limiting distributions under the null, are consistent against precisely specified alternatives, and have standard local power properties. We provide straightforward bootstrap methods for inference. Some Monte Carlo experiments show that, for empirically relevant sample …

Go to article

Impact Of Food Inflation On Poverty In The Philippines, Tomoki Fujii Apr 2013

Impact Of Food Inflation On Poverty In The Philippines, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

We simulate the impact of food inflation between June 2006 and June 2008 on poverty across different areas and between agricultural and non-agricultural households. We explicitly treat the spatial heterogeneity in food inflation and the differences in consumption and production patterns across households by merging household expenditure survey and price datasets at the provincial level or lower. Although some of the poor agricultural households may have escaped poverty, the poorest of the poor, whether they are in an agricultural household or not, are severely and adversely affected by the food inflation.

Go to article

Collusion Set Detection Using A Quasi Hidden Markov Model, Zhengxiao Wu, Xiaoyu Wu Apr 2013

Collusion Set Detection Using A Quasi Hidden Markov Model, Zhengxiao Wu, Xiaoyu Wu

Research Collection School Of Economics

In stock market, a collusion set is defined as a group of individuals or organizations who act cooperatively with an intention of manipulating security price. Collusion-based malpractices impose large costs on the economy, but few techniques have yet been developed for collusion set detection. In this article, we propose a quasi hidden Markov model (QHMM) approach. In particular, we consider the transactions as a marked point process with hidden states, and we calculate the class conditional probabilities to identify the malicious transactions. The detection algorithms associated with the model are recursive, hence suitable for online monitoring and detection. The QHMM …

Go to article

A Smooth Test For The Equality Of Distributions, Anil Bera, Aurobindo Ghosh, Zhijie Xiao Apr 2013

A Smooth Test For The Equality Of Distributions, Anil Bera, Aurobindo Ghosh, Zhijie Xiao

Research Collection School Of Economics

The two-sample version of the celebrated Pearson goodness-of-fit problem has been a topic of extensive research, and several tests like the Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Cramer-von Mises have been suggested. Although these tests perform fairly well ´ as omnibus tests for comparing two probability density functions (PDFs), they may have poor power against specific departures such as in location, scale, skewness, and kurtosis. We propose a new test for the equality of two PDFs based on a modified version of the Neyman smooth test using empirical distribution functions minimizing size distortion in finite samples. The suggested test can detect the specific directions …

Go to article

Penchant For Property Drives Buoyant Market, Singapore Management University Mar 2013

Penchant For Property Drives Buoyant Market, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

The catch phrase “location, location, location” is often cited by the real estate industry as crucial to closing a deal. In the case of land-scarce Singapore, its citizens’ penchant for property is giving Mr Patrick Liew, CEO of real estate company HSR Property Group, much cause for optimism as he says he is “very excited” at the opportunities available in the robust property market.

Go to article

Decomposing The Changes Of The Divisia Price Index: Application To Inflation In The Philippines, Tomoki Fujii Mar 2013

Decomposing The Changes Of The Divisia Price Index: Application To Inflation In The Philippines, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

We decompose the logarithmic change in the Divisia price index into the pure price, substitution, and preference effects, although the latter two effects are hard to distinguish in practice. This decomposition allows us to identify the incidence and contributing factors of inflation. In the Philippines, we find that the preference effect is much smaller than the pure price effect in all provinces. We also find that rich deciles have experienced a higher inflation than poor deciles between 1988 and 2006. However, the gap in the standards of living has actually widened because poor deciles lagged behind in consumption growth.

Go to article

Robust Virtual Implementation: Toward A Reinterpretation Of The Wilson Doctrine, Georgy Artemov, Takashi Kunimoto, Roberto Serrano Mar 2013

Robust Virtual Implementation: Toward A Reinterpretation Of The Wilson Doctrine, Georgy Artemov, Takashi Kunimoto, Roberto Serrano

Research Collection School Of Economics

We study a mechanism design problem where arbitrary restrictions are placed on the sets of first-order beliefs of agents. Calling these restrictions Δ, we use Δ-rationalizability (Battigalli and Siniscalchi, 2003, [5]) as our solution concept, and require that a mechanism virtually implement a socially desirable outcome. We obtain two necessary conditions, Δ-incentive compatibility and Δ-measurability and show that the latter is satisfied as long as a particular zero-measure set of first-order beliefs is ruled out. In environments allowing small transfers of utility among agents, these two conditions are also sufficient.

Go to article

A Note On Separability And Intra-Household Resource Allocation In A Collective Household Model, Tomoki Fujii, Ryuichiro Ishikawa Mar 2013

A Note On Separability And Intra-Household Resource Allocation In A Collective Household Model, Tomoki Fujii, Ryuichiro Ishikawa

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper shows that it is possible to track the changes in the distribution of power within a couple by focusing on the changes in the pattern of private consumption when the consumption decisions are efficient and private consumption is separable from public consumption in individual preferences. We first show that the separability of private consumption from public consumption at the individual level carries over to the household level. Hence, changes in public consumption only matters through a change in the residual budget available for private consumption. When the consumption decisions within the household is efficient, private consumption decisions can …

Go to article

Bias In The Mean Reversion Estimator In Continuous-Time Gaussian And Lévy Processes, Yong Bao, Aman Ullah, Yun Wang, Jun Yu Mar 2013

Bias In The Mean Reversion Estimator In Continuous-Time Gaussian And Lévy Processes, Yong Bao, Aman Ullah, Yun Wang, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

Continuous-time Levy processes have become increasingly popular in the asset pricing literature and estimation of the mean reversion parameter has attracted attention recently. This paper develops the approximate nite-sample bias of the ordinary least squares or quasi maximum likelihood estimator of the mean reversion parameter in continuous-time Levy processes. Simulations show that in general the approximate bias works well in capturing the true bias of the mean reversion estimator under difference scenarios. However, when the time span is small and the mean reversion parameter is approaching its lower bound, we find it more difficult to approximate well the nite-sample bias.

Go to article

Optimal City Hierarchy: A Dynamic Programming Approach To Central Place Theory, Wen-Tai Hsu, Thomas J. Holmes, Frank Morgan Mar 2013

Optimal City Hierarchy: A Dynamic Programming Approach To Central Place Theory, Wen-Tai Hsu, Thomas J. Holmes, Frank Morgan

Research Collection School Of Economics

Central place theory is a key building block of economic geography and an empirically plausible description of city systems. This paper provides a rationale for central place theory via a dynamic programming formulation of the social planner's problem of city hierarchy. We show that there must be one and only one immediate smaller city between two neighboring larger-sized cities in any optimal solution. If the fixed cost of setting up a city is a power function, then the immediate smaller city will be located in the middle, confirming the locational pattern suggested by Christaller [4] . We also show that …

Go to article

‘Educating Indonesia’ And The Minister Who’S Making It Happen, Singapore Management University Feb 2013

‘Educating Indonesia’ And The Minister Who’S Making It Happen, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Energy and optimism were highlights of the recent speech given by Indonesia’s Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan during the SMU Presidential Distinguished Lecturer Series. While the optimism may be rooted deeply in the potential of Indonesia’s current demographic — more than 30 percent of its population is aged between 19 and 24, and more than 50 percent is under 29, making it one of the youngest productive populations in the world — its economic success story is fact, reflected in its G-20 membership, where it is the second fastest growing economy.Yet much remains to be done to unleash the full potential …

Go to article

Why It’S A High-Speed Game Changer, Tan K. B. Eugene Feb 2013

Why It’S A High-Speed Game Changer, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

SMU Assistant Professor of Law Eugene Tan said that the agreement to build a high-speed rail (HSR) link between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore marks a milestone in bilateral relations. He noted that the HSR project is a manifestation of the imperative for Singapore and Malaysia to collaborate closely, leveraging on each other’s complementarities and strengths. Ideally, the HSR link would have a knock-on effect in engendering confidence and momentum in bilateral ties. In the meantime, with the HSR in the making, both governments should work resolutely on other existing plans, such as the Rapid Transit System (RTS) link between Singapore …

Go to article

A Nonparametric Goodness-Of-Fit-Based Test For Conditional Heteroskedasticity, Liangjun Su, Aman Ullah Feb 2013

A Nonparametric Goodness-Of-Fit-Based Test For Conditional Heteroskedasticity, Liangjun Su, Aman Ullah

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper we propose a new nonparametric test for conditional heteroskedasticity based on a measure of nonparametric goodness-of-fit (R2) that is obtained from the local polynomial regression of the residuals from a parametric regression on some covariates. We show that after being appropriately standardized, the nonparametric R2 is asymptotically normally distributed under the null hypothesis and a sequence of Pitman local alternatives. We also prove the consistency of the test and propose a bootstrap method to obtain the bootstrap p-values. We conduct a small set of simulations and compare our test with some popular parametric and nonparametric tests in …

Go to article

Schemes Work Hand In Hand To Boost Wages, Hian Teck Hoon Feb 2013

Schemes Work Hand In Hand To Boost Wages, Hian Teck Hoon

Research Collection School Of Economics

Professor Hoon Hian Teck discussed how this year's Budget helps both workers and companies push for higher productivity. The Workfare Income Supplement (WIS) scheme in 2007 provided one answer to boost the earnings of low-wage workers. The Wage Credit Scheme (WCS) introduced in Budget 2013 is another innovative policy instrument that works in tandem with the Productivity and Innovation Credit (PIC) scheme to help SMEs on their journey to becoming more productive. Under WCS, the Government covers 40 per cent of the wage increase from increased productivity (obtained through the PIC scheme), leaving the firm with a higher profit. Since …

Go to article

Host Country Financial Development And Mnc Activity, L. Kamran Bilir, Davin Chor, Manova Kalina Feb 2013

Host Country Financial Development And Mnc Activity, L. Kamran Bilir, Davin Chor, Manova Kalina

Research Collection School Of Economics

Multinational corporations (MNCs) manage complex operations, often blending features of three modes of FDI that are well understood in isolation but not in tandem, namely: horizontal, vertical and export-platform FDI. We develop a three-country model with heterogeneous firms, in order to analyze how financing constraints in the FDI host country affect the relative strength of these three motives for FDI. In our model, financial development in the host country fosters entry by domestic firms, making the local market more competitive for MNC products. This leads MNCs to orient their affiliate sales away from the local market toward other markets instead. …

Go to article

The Future Of Wages In Singapore, Hian Teck Hoon Feb 2013

The Future Of Wages In Singapore, Hian Teck Hoon

Research Collection School Of Economics

Prof Hoon discussed the future of wages in Singapore and identified major trends affecting Singapore's labour market over the past decade. He noted that in the future, SMEs that are unable to raise workers' productivity to match the higher labour costs will exit the industry, thus leading to job destruction. Also, for there to be a steady supply of jobs with good pay for Singaporeans, the country would need to continue to attract MNCs by harnessing its relative strength in institutional quality and the availability of a highly skilled workforce. Success in helping SMEs to raise their productivity levels and …

Go to article

First Prev Next Last