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Full-Text Articles in Economics

The Auditor And The Firm: A Simple Model Of Corporate Cheating And Intermediation, Brishti Guha Sep 2005

The Auditor And The Firm: A Simple Model Of Corporate Cheating And Intermediation, Brishti Guha

Research Collection School Of Economics

We apply a game-theoretic model to the analysis of the recent spate of corporate scandals in which firms have cheated their investors, often with the aid of external auditors. We characterize the different types of equilibria that obtain for different parameter ranges in an auditor’s absence (the parameters we consider being early signal accuracy – a measure of transparency – and withdrawal costs – a measure of the liquidity of investments). We also analyze whether and under what conditions the presence of an informed auditor could lead to an improvement in the sense of honest behavior replacing cheating as the …

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On Leverage In A Stochastic Volatility Model, Jun Yu Aug 2005

On Leverage In A Stochastic Volatility Model, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper is concerned with the specification for modelling financial leverage effect in the context of stochastic volatility (SV) models. Two alternative specifications co-exist in the literature. One is the Euler approximation to the well-known continuous time SV model with leverage effect and the other is the discrete time SV model of Jacquier et al. (J. Econometrics 122 (2004) 185). Using a Gaussian nonlinear state space form with uncorrelated measurement and transition errors, I show that it is easy to interpret the leverage effect in the conventional model whereas it is not clear how to obtain and interpret the leverage …

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Protection For Sale Under Monopolistic Competition, Pao Li Chang Aug 2005

Protection For Sale Under Monopolistic Competition, Pao Li Chang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper proposes a general empirical framework to estimate the protection-for-sale model, where the protection regime shifts according to a sector's market structure (perfectly or monop-olistically competitive). We base the protection structure on Grossman and Helpman (1994) for the subset of perfectly competitive sectors and on Chang (2005) for the subset of monop- olistically competitive sectors. The two protection regimes are simultaneously estimated with joint constraints. The results of the J-test consistently reject the homogeneous (perfect compe- tition) protection-for-sale model often adopted in previous literature and suggest a direction of improvement toward the proposed heterogeneous protection structure model.

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The 2004 Global Labour Survey: Working Institution And Practices Around The World, Davin Chor, Richard B. Freeman Aug 2005

The 2004 Global Labour Survey: Working Institution And Practices Around The World, Davin Chor, Richard B. Freeman

Research Collection School Of Economics

The 2004 Global Labor Survey (GLS) is an Internet-based survey that seeks to measure de facto labor practices in countries around the world, covering issues such as freedom of association, the regulation of work contracts, employee benefits and the prevalence of collective bargaining. To find out about de facto practices, the GLS invited labor practitioners, ranging from union officials and activists to professors of labor law and industrial relations, to report on conditions in their country. Over 1,500 persons responded, which allowed us to create indices of practices in ten broad areas for 33 countries. The GLS' focus on de …

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Protection For Sale Under Monopolistic Competition, Pao Li Chang Jul 2005

Protection For Sale Under Monopolistic Competition, Pao Li Chang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper broadens the protection for sale model of Grossman and Helpman (1994) by incorporating the Krugman–Dixit–Stiglitz model of monopolistic competition, given its importance in explaining the prevalence of intraindustry trade. Several new results arise in this paper. First, the endogenous import tariff will never fall below zero, even in unorganized sectors. Second, the endogenous export policy for organized sectors is not necessarily an export subsidy, and can be an export tax as in unorganized sectors. Third, the level of import protection varies inversely with the degree of import penetration, regardless of whether the sector is organized or not.

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Intraday Stock Prices, Volume, And Duration: A Nonparametric Conditional Duration Analysis, Anthony Tay Jul 2005

Intraday Stock Prices, Volume, And Duration: A Nonparametric Conditional Duration Analysis, Anthony Tay

Research Collection School Of Economics

We investigate the distribution of high-frequency price changes, conditional on trading volume and duration between trades, on four stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The conditional probabilities are estimated nonparametrically using local polynomial regression methods. We find substantial skewness in the distribution of price changes, with the direction of skewness dependent on the sign of trade. We also find that the probability of larger price changes increases with volume, but only for trades that occur with longer durations. The distribution of price changes vary with duration primarily when volume is high.

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Micro-Level Estimation Of Child Malnutrition Indicators And Its Application In Cambodia, Tomoki Fujii Jul 2005

Micro-Level Estimation Of Child Malnutrition Indicators And Its Application In Cambodia, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

One of the major limitations in addressing child malnutrition is lack of information that could be used to target resources. By combining demographic and health survey (DHS) and population census data, the author disaggregates the estimates of the prevalence of child malnutrition in Cambodia from currently available 17 DHS strata into 1,594 communes. The methodology is built on the small-area estimation technique developed by Elbers, Lanjouw, and Lanjouw. The author extends it to jointly estimate multiple indicators and to allow for a richer structure of error terms. Average standard errors for the commune-level estimates in this study were about 4 …

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Optimal Sequential Decision Architectures And The Robustness Of Hierarchies And Polyarchies, Winston T. H. Koh Jun 2005

Optimal Sequential Decision Architectures And The Robustness Of Hierarchies And Polyarchies, Winston T. H. Koh

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper studies collective decision making in the context of a project selection model. We derive the optimal decision architecture in the presence of marginal decision costs, and investigate the circumstances under which the hierarchy and polyarchy emerge as optimal sequential architectures. Our analysis extends previous results on optimal organizational decision-making to a sequential setting, and further demonstrates the fragility of the hierarchy and polyarchy as optimal architectures.

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Jackknifing Bond Option Prices, Peter C. B. Phillips, Jun Yu Jun 2005

Jackknifing Bond Option Prices, Peter C. B. Phillips, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

Prices of interest rate derivative securities depend crucially on the mean reversion parameters of the underlying diffusions. These parameters are subject to estimation bias when standard methods are used. The estimation bias can be substantial even in very large samples and much more serious than the discretization bias, and it translates into a bias in pricing bond options and other derivative securities that is important in practical work. This article proposes a very general and computationally inexpensive method of bias reduction that is based on Quenouille's (1956; Biometrika, 43, 353-360) jackknife. We show how the method can be applied directly …

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Trade, Capital Accumulation And Structural Unemployment: An Empirical Study Of The Singapore Economy, Hiau Looi Kee, Hian Teck Hoon Jun 2005

Trade, Capital Accumulation And Structural Unemployment: An Empirical Study Of The Singapore Economy, Hiau Looi Kee, Hian Teck Hoon

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper studies the factors responsible for the secular decline of Singapore's unemployment rate over the period 1966-2000 in an environment of low and stable inflation rates. We introduce wage bargaining and unions into a specific-factors, two-sector economy with an export sector and a non-tradable sector to obtain an endogenous natural unemployment rate. Increases in the relative export price and capital stock in the export sector are predicted to reduce structural unemployment. These hypotheses could not be rejected based on structural estimations and co-integration regressions. Empirically, capital accumulation in the export sector explains most of the decline in Singapore's unemployment …

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Non-Market Leadership Experience And Labor Market Success: Evidence From Military Rank, Myoung-Jae Lee, Chun Seng Yip May 2005

Non-Market Leadership Experience And Labor Market Success: Evidence From Military Rank, Myoung-Jae Lee, Chun Seng Yip

Research Collection School Of Economics

There has been much recent interest in the effects of pre and non-market skills on future labor market outcomes. This paper examines one such effect: the effect on future wages of military leadership experience among Vietnam generation American men. We study rank, not just veteran status. We argue that rank is a good measure of pre-market leadership skills because of the clear military hierarchy and the primarily youth experience of Vietnam service. Two sources of selection bias are accounted for: non-random military entry and eventual rank attained. We apply a modified 2-stage parametric sample selection method. The rank premia on …

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Competing At The Frontier: The Changing Role Of Technology Policy In Singapore's Economic Strategy, Winston T. H. Koh, Poh Kam Wong Mar 2005

Competing At The Frontier: The Changing Role Of Technology Policy In Singapore's Economic Strategy, Winston T. H. Koh, Poh Kam Wong

Research Collection School Of Economics

For an economy competing at the global frontier, an innovation-based growth strategy requires a well-developed technological infrastructure, a set of capabilities-focused technology policies, as well as an institutional environment that stimulates innovation and entrepreneurship. This paper examines the role played by science and technology policy in an economy's transition to an innovation-based growth strategy. We discuss the challenges governments face as they restructure economic institutions to deepen R&D capabilities and encourage technology creation. We review Singapore's experience in this regard and assess its ongoing efforts to remake itself to compete at the global frontier.

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Household Demand, Network Externality Effects And Intertemporal Price Discrimination, Winston T. H. Koh Mar 2005

Household Demand, Network Externality Effects And Intertemporal Price Discrimination, Winston T. H. Koh

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper examines the optimality of intertemporal price discrimination when network externality effects are present in the consumption of a durable good. We conduct our study in two settings. In a model with two household types, utilities are dependent on the cumulative proportion of households that have purchased the durable good. Next, in a model with a continuum of household types, we extend the analysis to the case where households consume both a durable good and a stream of non-durable goods. We show that in both settings, the presence of network externalities facilitates a sales strategy with intertemporal price discrimination.

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Drift And Diffusion Function Specification For Short-Term Interest Rates, Myoung-Jae Lee, Wen Juan Li Mar 2005

Drift And Diffusion Function Specification For Short-Term Interest Rates, Myoung-Jae Lee, Wen Juan Li

Research Collection School Of Economics

Various stochastic differential equation models for short rates (rt) have been proposed, where the change (Δrt = rt−rt−1) is modeled as a sum of drift and diffusion terms depending on rt−1. These models, however, have some shortcomings. First, the same model may not apply to all countries. Second, the drift and diffusion may depend not only on rt−1 but also on further lags. Third, not just the own lagged rates, but also other countries' rates may matter. These questions are empirically analyzed for six major countries with the following findings. …

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Sustainable External Debt Levels: Estimates For Selected Asian Countries, Roberto S. Mariano, Delano Villanueva Mar 2005

Sustainable External Debt Levels: Estimates For Selected Asian Countries, Roberto S. Mariano, Delano Villanueva

Research Collection School Of Economics

High ratios of external debt to GDP in selected Asian countries have contributed to the initiation, propagation, and severity of the financial and economic crises in recent years, reflecting runaway fiscal deficits and excessive foreign borrowing by the private sector. Applying the formal framework proposed by Villanueva (2003) to a selected group of Asian countries, the research estimates the external debt thresholds beyond which further debt accumulation will have negative effects on growth and will become unsustainable. The framework is an extension of the standard neoclassical growth model that incorporates global capital markets. ‘Sustainability’ is measured in terms of the …

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Corruption Across Countries And Regions: Some Consequences Of Local Osmosis, Raaj Sah Mar 2005

Corruption Across Countries And Regions: Some Consequences Of Local Osmosis, Raaj Sah

Research Collection School Of Economics

Large and persistent differences in corruption across comparable countries is a challenging research issue. Even more intriguing are such differences across regions within the same country, because the typically considered socioeconomic and governance characteristics are generally more similar across such regions than across different countries. This paper's principal theme is that individuals’ perceptions of their environments are influenced by the realities that they have faced in the past; these perceptions affect their current and future actions; which in turn influence the current and future realities. An articulation and analysis of these dynamics yields significant observations concerning individuals’ behavior and societal …

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Some Patterns Of Market Shares Of Brands Within And Across Product Categories, Rajeev Kohli, Raaj Sah Mar 2005

Some Patterns Of Market Shares Of Brands Within And Across Product Categories, Rajeev Kohli, Raaj Sah

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper: (i) reports an empirical regularity in the market shares of brands; (ii) presents a theoretical framework for understanding the observed regularity; (iii) adduces additional empirical consequences of the framework, which are some counterintuitive relationships among market shares of brands across different product categories; and (iv) presents empirical evidence for these consequences, thus providing additional support for the theoretical framework. Our cross-sectional data on market shares consists of 1171 brands in 91 product categories of foods and sporting goods sold in the US. If we assign a lower rank to a brand with a higher market share, then the …

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Older Workers: Untapped Assets For Creating Value, Knowledge@Smu Feb 2005

Older Workers: Untapped Assets For Creating Value, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

The days when an executive could look forward to a leisurely retirement out on the golf course are over, thanks to a possible looming job shortage, a graying population, low savings rates and an insecure Social Security system. The impact of these factors on both workers and companies was the subject of the Symposium on Older Workers, co-sponsored recently by the AARP Global Aging Program along with Wharton's Center for Human Resources and Boettner Center for Pensions and Retirement Research. Speakers included AARP CEO William D. Novelli, Olivia Mitchell, executive director of Wharton's Pension Research Council, and Thomas Dowd, a …

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Analysis Of Labor Participation Behavior Of Korean Women With Dynamic Probit And Conditional Logit, Myoung-Jae Lee, Yoon-Hee Tae Feb 2005

Analysis Of Labor Participation Behavior Of Korean Women With Dynamic Probit And Conditional Logit, Myoung-Jae Lee, Yoon-Hee Tae

Research Collection School Of Economics

We analyse the dynamic labour participation behaviour of Korean women. State dependence under unobserved heterogeneity is considered, where the heterogeneity may be unrelated, pseudo-related, or arbitrarily related to regressors. Three minor methodological contributions are made: interaction terms with lagged response are allowed in dynamic conditional logit; a three-stage algorithm for dynamic probit is proposed; and treating the initial response as fixed is shown to be ill-advised. The state dependence is about 0.6 × SD(error), higher for the married or junior college-educated, and lower for women in their twenties and thirties. While education increases participation, college education has negative effects for …

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Household Demand, Network Externality Effects And Intertemporal Price Discrimination, Winston T. H. Koh Feb 2005

Household Demand, Network Externality Effects And Intertemporal Price Discrimination, Winston T. H. Koh

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper examines the optimality of intertemporal price discrimination when network externality effects are present in the consumption of a durable good. We conduct our study in two settings. In a model with two household types, utilities are dependent on the cumulative proportion of households that have purchased the durable good. Next, in a model with a continuum of household types, we extend the analysis to the case where households consume both a durable good and a stream of non-durable goods. We show that in both settings, the presence of network externalities facilitates a sales strategy with intertemporal price discrimination. …

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Investing In Real Estate: Mortgage Financing Practices And Optimal Holding Period, Winston T. H. Koh, Edward H. K. Ng Feb 2005

Investing In Real Estate: Mortgage Financing Practices And Optimal Holding Period, Winston T. H. Koh, Edward H. K. Ng

Research Collection School Of Economics

Real estate investments are typically characterized by high degrees of leverage and long loan tenures. In perfect capital markets, leverage has no impact on the investment decision apart from tax considerations. However, the mortgage financing market is imperfect in many countries. In the presence of market imperfections, an optimal holding period exists for real property investments. We provide a simple rule to calculate the optimal holding period is to compare the required rate of return with the leveraged rate of return on equity.

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Report Of The Committee On Fare Review Mechanism, Sock Yong Phang Feb 2005

Report Of The Committee On Fare Review Mechanism, Sock Yong Phang

Research Collection School Of Economics

Today, public transport fares are reviewed annually and adjustments, if any, are capped by the “CPI + X” formula, where CPI is the change in the Consumer Price Index over the previous year and X accounts for the net effect of wage changes after deducting productivity gains. For the period from 2001 to 2005, X was determined to be 1.5%. While this mechanism has worked well in keeping public transport fares affordable, the formula lacks transparency and is not easily understood by the general public. Commuters often question the need for the “X” element given that the public transport operators …

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A Subjective Approach To The Study Of Oligopolistic Party Systems, Riccardo Pelizzo Jan 2005

A Subjective Approach To The Study Of Oligopolistic Party Systems, Riccardo Pelizzo

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The purpose of this paper is to present a new theory of the cartel party. My argument is straightforward. Assuming that parties are the political analog of firms, that party systems are the political analog of markets, that the shares of the electorate are the political analog of the market shares that firms control, Western European party systems share with oligopolistic markets some structural features. Yet, to know whether Western European party systems resemble oligopolistic markets, we need to know whether Western European party systems are non-competitive political markets exactly in the same way in which oligopolistic markets are not …

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Comment: A Selective Overview Of Nonparametric Methods In Financial Econometrics, Peter C. B. Phillips, Jun Yu Jan 2005

Comment: A Selective Overview Of Nonparametric Methods In Financial Econometrics, Peter C. B. Phillips, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

These comments concentrate on two issues arising from Fan’s overview. The first concerns the importance of finite sample estimation bias relative to the specification and discretization biases that are emphasized in Fan’s discussion. Past research and simulations given here both reveal that finite sample effects can be more important than the other two effects when judged from either statistical or economic viewpoints. Second, we draw attention to a very different nonparametric technique that is based on computing an empirical version of the quadratic variation process. This technique is not mentioned by Fan but has many advantages and has accordingly attracted …

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Analysis Of Job-Training Effects On Korean Women, Myoung-Jae Lee, S. J. Lee Jan 2005

Analysis Of Job-Training Effects On Korean Women, Myoung-Jae Lee, S. J. Lee

Research Collection School Of Economics

We analyse job-training effects on Korean women for the period January 1999 to March 2000, using a large data set of size about 52,000. We employ a number of estimation techniques: Weibull MLE and accelerated failure time approach, which are both parametric; Cox partial likelihood estimator, which is semiparametric; and two pair-matching estimators, which are in essence nonparametric. All of these methods gave the common conclusion that job training for Korean women increased their unemployment duration. The trainings were not cost-effective in the sense that they took too much time 'locking in' the trainees during the training span, compared with …

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An Analytical Framework Of Science Parks And Technology Districts With An Application To Singapore, Francis Koh, Winston T. H. Koh, Ted Feichin Tschang Jan 2005

An Analytical Framework Of Science Parks And Technology Districts With An Application To Singapore, Francis Koh, Winston T. H. Koh, Ted Feichin Tschang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper analyzes the question: What does it take for science parks and technology districts to evolve and grow? We propose an analytical framework to examine the gestation, evolution, and sustainability of science parks and related but broader regional phenomena such as technology districts. The framework comprises three aspects of a science park's development: growth mechanisms, level of technological capabilities, and nature of its integration with national or global markets. The main growth mechanisms we identify are government-led infrastructure provision, agglomeration effects, and continual self-renewal through the creation of new businesses. We apply this framework to analyze Singapore's science park …

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Bank Lending And Real Estate In Asia: Market Optimism And Asset Bubbles, Winston T. H. Koh, Roberto S. Mariano, Andrey Pavlov, Sock-Yong Phang, Augustine H. H. Tan, Susan M. Wachter Jan 2005

Bank Lending And Real Estate In Asia: Market Optimism And Asset Bubbles, Winston T. H. Koh, Roberto S. Mariano, Andrey Pavlov, Sock-Yong Phang, Augustine H. H. Tan, Susan M. Wachter

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper investigates the Asian real estate price run-up and collapse in the 1990s. We identify financial intermediaries’ underpricing of the put option imbedded in non-recourse mortgage loans as a potential cause for the observed price behavior. This underpricing is due to behavioral causes (lender optimism and disaster myopia) and/or rational response of lenders to market incentives (agency conflicts, deposit insurance, or limited liability of bank shareholders). The empirical evidence suggests that underpricing occurred in Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Consequently, these countries experienced a more severe market crash than Hong Kong and Singapore, where underpricing was kept under control by …

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Simultaneous Equations In Ordered Discrete Responses With Regressor-Dependent Thresholds, Myoung-Jae Lee, A. Kimhi Jan 2005

Simultaneous Equations In Ordered Discrete Responses With Regressor-Dependent Thresholds, Myoung-Jae Lee, A. Kimhi

Research Collection School Of Economics

The parameters of ordered discrete response (ODR) models are identified only up to a positive scale. In this paper, we examine the identification issue for simultaneous equations with ODR, where the well-known identification problem in simultaneous equations of recovering structural-form parameters from reduced-form parameters is compounded with the ODR identification problem. We allow the thresholds in ODR to be regressor dependent as well as constant; the former is particularly challenging because threshold parameters get mixed with regression parameters, adding one more dimension to the identification problem. We also explore a cross-equation restriction on threshold differences, under which the structural form …

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Future Job Prospects In Singapore, Hian Teck Hoon Jan 2005

Future Job Prospects In Singapore, Hian Teck Hoon

Research Collection School Of Economics

No abstract provided.

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Future Job Prospects In Singapore, Hian Teck Hoon Jan 2005

Future Job Prospects In Singapore, Hian Teck Hoon

Research Collection School Of Economics

What forces have shaped our nation’s employment and remuneration record so far? Where is Singapore’s unemployment rate headed? What should policy-makers do about it? These are the questions tackled in this paper.

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