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Research Collection School Of Economics

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Full-Text Articles in Economics

Are Simple Mechanisms Optimal When Agents Are Unsophisticated?, Jiangtao Li, Piotr Dworczak Jan 2022

Are Simple Mechanisms Optimal When Agents Are Unsophisticated?, Jiangtao Li, Piotr Dworczak

Research Collection School Of Economics

We study the design of mechanisms involving agents that have limited strategic sophistication. We define a mechanism to be simple if—given the assumed level of strategic sophistication—agents can determine their optimal strategy. We examine whether it is optimal for the mechanism designer who faces strategically unsophisticated agents to offer a simple mechanism. We show that when the designer uses a mechanism that is not simple, while she loses the ability to predict play, she may nevertheless be better off no matter how agents resolve their strategic confusion


Uniform Nonparametric Inference For Spatially Dependent Panel Data: The Xtnpsreg Command, Jia Li, Zhipeng Liao, Wenyu Zhou Jan 2022

Uniform Nonparametric Inference For Spatially Dependent Panel Data: The Xtnpsreg Command, Jia Li, Zhipeng Liao, Wenyu Zhou

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this article, we introduce a command, xtnpsreg, that implements a uniform nonparametric inference procedure for possibly unbalanced panel datasets with general forms of spatio-temporal dependence. We demonstrate how to apply this command in several use cases, including (i) the nonparametric estimation of conditional mean function and its marginal response; (ii) the construction of uniform confidence bands for these nonparametric functional parameters; (iii) specification tests for parametric model restrictions; and (iv) the estimation and uniform inference for functional coefficients in semi-nonparametric models.


Learning Before Testing: A Selective Nonparametric Test For Conditional Moment Restrictions, Jia Li, Zhipeng Liao, Wenyu Zhou Jan 2022

Learning Before Testing: A Selective Nonparametric Test For Conditional Moment Restrictions, Jia Li, Zhipeng Liao, Wenyu Zhou

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper develops a new test for conditional moment restrictions via nonparametric series regression, with approximating series terms selected by Lasso. Machine-learning the main features of the unknown conditional expectation function beforehand enables the test to seek power in a targeted fashion. The data-driven selection, however, also tends to distort the test’s size nontrivially, because it restricts the (growing-dimensional) score vector in the series regression on a random polytope, and hence, effectively alters the score’s asymptotic normality. A novel critical value is proposed to account for this truncation effect. We establish the size and local power properties of the proposed …


Does A District Mandate Matter For The Behavior Of Politicians? An Analysis Of Roll-Call Votes And Parliamentary Speeches, Andreas Born, Aljoscha Janssen Jan 2022

Does A District Mandate Matter For The Behavior Of Politicians? An Analysis Of Roll-Call Votes And Parliamentary Speeches, Andreas Born, Aljoscha Janssen

Research Collection School Of Economics

In most democracies, members of parliament (MPs) are elected either through a party list or by a district. We use a discontinuity in the German electoral system to investigate the causal effect of a district election on an MP’s conformity with the party line. A district election does not affect roll-call voting behavior causally, possibly due to overall high adherence to party-line voting. Analyzing the parliamentary speeches of each MP allows us to overcome the high party-line discipline with regard to parliamentary voting. Using textual analysis and machine learning techniques, we create two measures of closeness of an MP’s speeches …


Jue Insight: Migration, Transportation Infrastructure, And The Spatial Transmission Of Covid-19 In China, Bingjing Li, Lin Ma Jan 2022

Jue Insight: Migration, Transportation Infrastructure, And The Spatial Transmission Of Covid-19 In China, Bingjing Li, Lin Ma

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper evaluates the impacts of migration flows and transportation infrastructure on the spatial transmission of COVID-19 in China. Prefectures with larger bilateral migration flows and shorter travel distances with Hubei, the epicenter of the outbreak, experienced a wider spread of COVID-19. In addition, richer prefectures with higher incomes were better able to contain the virus at the early stages of community transmission. Using a spatial general equilibrium model, we show that around 28% of the infections outside Hubei province can be explained by the rapid development in transportation infrastructure and the liberalization of migration restrictions in the recent decade.


Rethinking The Role Of Employment Barriers In Active Labor Market Policy: Evidence From A Fixed Effects Analysis, Jian Qi Tan, Irene Y. H. Ng, Kong Weng Ho Jan 2022

Rethinking The Role Of Employment Barriers In Active Labor Market Policy: Evidence From A Fixed Effects Analysis, Jian Qi Tan, Irene Y. H. Ng, Kong Weng Ho

Research Collection School Of Economics

Using a panel dataset from a five-wave survey of participants in Singapore’s Work Support Programme (WSP) from 2010 to 2016, we quantify the cumulative negative impact of facing multiple employment barriers and demonstrate the association between the individual stressors and labor market indicators. Using a fixed effects model to reduce the confounding effects of unobservables, we find that a one standard deviation increase in the number of employment barriers brings about a 2.7 to 3.5 percentage point increase in the probability of being unemployed and a 58 SGD to 78 SGD decrease in individual earnings.


Does A District Mandate Matter For The Behavior Of Politicians? An Analysis Of Roll-Call Votes And Parliamentary Speeches, Andreas Born, Aljoscha Janssen Jan 2022

Does A District Mandate Matter For The Behavior Of Politicians? An Analysis Of Roll-Call Votes And Parliamentary Speeches, Andreas Born, Aljoscha Janssen

Research Collection School Of Economics

In most democracies, members of parliament (MPs) are elected either through a party list or by a district. We use a discontinuity in the German electoral system to investigate the causal effect of a district election on an MP’s conformity with the party line. A district election does not affect roll-call voting behavior causally, possibly due to overall high adherence to party-line voting. Analyzing the parliamentary speeches of each MP allows us to overcome the high party-line discipline with regard to parliamentary voting. Using textual analysis and machine learning techniques, we create two measures of closeness of an MP’s speeches …


Mechanism Design By Observant And Informed Planners, Shurojit Chatterji, Arunava Sen Jan 2022

Mechanism Design By Observant And Informed Planners, Shurojit Chatterji, Arunava Sen

Research Collection School Of Economics

We study the mechanism design problem where the planner can observe ex-post the first-ranked alternatives or peaks of voter preferences. We contrast this with the design problem where the planner has ex-ante information regarding the peaks of voter preferences.


Vat Treatment Of The Financial Services: Implications For The Real Economy, Ismail Baydur, Fatih Yilmaz Dec 2021

Vat Treatment Of The Financial Services: Implications For The Real Economy, Ismail Baydur, Fatih Yilmaz

Research Collection School Of Economics

Financial institutions are exempt from the value-added tax (VAT) in most countries. We develop a general equilibrium model with endogenous firm entry and a banking sector to accommodate three key distortions related to exempt treatment: (i) self-supply bias in the banking sector, (ii) under-taxation of payment services, and (iii) input distortions in the business sector and tax cascading. We calibrate our model to the average of Germany, France, and the UK data. Our results show that repealing exempt treatment always increases tax revenues. However, welfare gains occur only at low VAT rates due to the hump-shaped VAT Laffer curve.


Pitfalls In Bootstrapping Spurious Regression, Peter C. B. Phillips Dec 2021

Pitfalls In Bootstrapping Spurious Regression, Peter C. B. Phillips

Research Collection School Of Economics

The bootstrap is shown to be inconsistent in spurious regression. The failure of the bootstrap is spectacular in that the bootstrap effectively turns a spurious regression into a cointegrating regression. In particular, the serial correlation coefficient of the residuals in the bootstrap regression does not converge to unity, so the bootstrap is not even first order consistent. The block bootstrap serial correlation coefficient does converge to unity and is therefore first order consistent, but has a slower rate of convergence and a different limit distribution from that of the sample data serial correlation coefficient. The analysis covers spurious regressions involving …


Tapping On Growth Opportunities Through Trade And Investment, Andy Feng, Gerald Foong, Geraldine Lim Dec 2021

Tapping On Growth Opportunities Through Trade And Investment, Andy Feng, Gerald Foong, Geraldine Lim

Research Collection School Of Economics

As a small and open economy, external developments play a crucial role in shaping Singapore’s growth prospects. In particular, external demand is pivotal in supporting the growth of Singapore’s gross domestic product (GDP) beyond the limits afforded by a small domestic market. Furthermore, due to the resource constraints faced by Singapore, its production of goods and services to meet both external and domestic demand requires a substantial use of imported inputs. Apart from trade, Singapore’s openness and outward-orientation also extend to its embrace of inward and outward investments to grow its economy and create jobs for Singaporeans. In view of …


Economic Forecasting In An Epidemic: A Break From The Past?, Hwee Kwan Chow, Keen Meng Choy Dec 2021

Economic Forecasting In An Epidemic: A Break From The Past?, Hwee Kwan Chow, Keen Meng Choy

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper aims to investigate whether the predictive ability and behaviour of professional forecasters are different during the Covid-19 epidemic as compared with the global financial crisis of 2008 and normal times. To this end, we utilise a survey of professional forecasters in Singapore collated by the central bank to analyse the forecasting record for GDP growth and CPI inflation. We first examine the point forecasts to document the extent of forecast failure in the pandemic crisis and test for behavioural explanations of the possible sources of forecast errors such as leader following and herding behaviour. Using percentile-based summary measures …


Does Precise Case Disclosure Limit Precautionary Behavior? Evidence From Covid-19 In Singapore, Aljoscha Janssen, Matthew H. Shapiro Dec 2021

Does Precise Case Disclosure Limit Precautionary Behavior? Evidence From Covid-19 In Singapore, Aljoscha Janssen, Matthew H. Shapiro

Research Collection School Of Economics

Limiting the spread of contagious diseases can involve both government-managed and voluntary efforts. Governments have a number of policy options beyond direct intervention that can shape individuals’ responses to a pandemic and its associated costs. During its first wave of COVID-19 cases, Singapore was among a few countries that attempted to adjust behavior through the announcement of detailed case information. Singapore's Ministry of Health maintained and shared precise, daily information detailing local travel behavior and residences of COVID-19 cases. We use this policy along with device-level cellphone data to quantify how local and national COVID-19 case announcements trigger differential behavioral …


Economic Impact Of Targeted Government Responses To Covid-19: Evidence From The Large-Scale Cluster In Seoul, Kim, Kanghyock Koh, Jinwook Shin Dec 2021

Economic Impact Of Targeted Government Responses To Covid-19: Evidence From The Large-Scale Cluster In Seoul, Kim, Kanghyock Koh, Jinwook Shin

Research Collection School Of Economics

We estimate the economic impact of South Korea's targeted responses to the first large-scale COVID-19 cluster in Seoul. We find that foot traffic and retail sales decreased only within a 300 meter radius of the cluster and recovered to its pre-outbreak level after four weeks. The reductions appear to be driven by temporary business closures rather than the risk avoidance behavior of the citizens. Our results imply that less intense, but more targeted COVID-19 interventions, such as pin-pointed, temporary closures of businesses, can be a low-cost alternative after lifting strict social distancing measures.


A Practical Guide To Harnessing The Har Volatility Model, Adam Clements, Daniel P. A. Preve Dec 2021

A Practical Guide To Harnessing The Har Volatility Model, Adam Clements, Daniel P. A. Preve

Research Collection School Of Economics

The standard heterogeneous autoregressive (HAR) model is perhaps the most popular benchmark model for forecasting return volatility. It is often estimated using raw realized variance (RV) and ordinary least squares (OLS). However, given the stylized facts of RV and well-known properties of OLS, this combination should be far from ideal. The aim of this paper is to investigate how the predictive accuracy of the HAR model depends on the choice of estimator, transformation, or combination scheme made by the market practitioner. In an out-of-sample study, covering the S&P 500 index and 26 frequently traded NYSE stocks, it is found that …


Health Insurance And Subjective Well-Being: Evidence From Two Healthcare Reforms In The United States, Seonghoon Kim Nov 2021

Health Insurance And Subjective Well-Being: Evidence From Two Healthcare Reforms In The United States, Seonghoon Kim

Research Collection School Of Economics

We study the role of access to health insurance coverage as a determinant of individuals' subjective well-being (SWB) by analyzing large-scale healthcare reforms in the United States. Using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we find that the 2006 Massachusetts reform and 2014 Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion improved the overall life satisfaction of Massachusetts residents and low-income adults in Medicaid expansion states, respectively. The results are robust to various sensitivity and falsification tests. Our findings imply that access to health insurance plays an important role in improving SWB. Without considering psychological …


Urbanization Policy And Economic Development: A Quantitative Analysis Of China's Differential Hukou Reforms, Wen-Tai Hsu, Lin Ma Nov 2021

Urbanization Policy And Economic Development: A Quantitative Analysis Of China's Differential Hukou Reforms, Wen-Tai Hsu, Lin Ma

Research Collection School Of Economics

The household registration system (hukou system) in China has hampered rural-urban migration by posing large migration friction. The system has been gradually relaxed in the past few decades, but the reforms have been differential in city size. We find a striking contrast in migration patterns between years 2005 and 2015; rural people tended to move more to large cities in 2005, but more to small- and medium-sized cities in 2015. We calibrate a spatial quantitative model to the world economy in both years with China divided into rural, mega-city, and other-city regions. We find that alternative urbanization policies that are …


Fixed-K Inference For Volatility, Tim Bollerslev, Jia Li, Zhipeng Liao Nov 2021

Fixed-K Inference For Volatility, Tim Bollerslev, Jia Li, Zhipeng Liao

Research Collection School Of Economics

We present a new theory for the conduct of nonparametric inference about the latent spot volatility of a semimartingale asset price process. In contrast to existing theories based on the asymptotic notion of an increasing number of observations in local estimation blocks, our theory treats the estimation block size k as fixed. While the resulting spot volatility estimator is no longer consistent, the new theory permits the construction of asymptotically valid and easy-to-calculate pointwise confidence intervals for the volatility at any given point in time. Extending the theory to a high-dimensional inference setting with a growing number of estimation blocks …


Global Value Chain Development Report 2021: Beyond Production, Yuqing Xing, Elisabetta Gentile, David Dollar, Et Al. Nov 2021

Global Value Chain Development Report 2021: Beyond Production, Yuqing Xing, Elisabetta Gentile, David Dollar, Et Al.

Research Collection School Of Economics

A radical shift is underway in global value chains as they increasingly move beyond traditional manufacturing processes to services and other intangible assets. Digitization is a leading factor in this transformation, which is being accelerated by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. The Global Value Chain Development Report 2021, the third of a biennial series, explores this shift Beyond Production. This report shows how the rise of services value chains offers a new path to development and how protectionism and geopolitical tensions, environmental risks, and pandemics are undermining the stability of global value chains and forcing their reorganization geographically.


The Price Elasticity Of African Elephant Poaching, Quy-Toan Do, Andrei A. Levchenko, Lin Ma, Julian Blanc, Holly Dublin, Tom Milliken Oct 2021

The Price Elasticity Of African Elephant Poaching, Quy-Toan Do, Andrei A. Levchenko, Lin Ma, Julian Blanc, Holly Dublin, Tom Milliken

Research Collection School Of Economics

The objective of this paper is to provide an estimate of the elasticity of elephant poaching with respect to prices. Ivory being a storable commodity subjects its price to Hotelling’s no-arbitrage condition, hence allowing identification of the supply curve. The price of gold, one of many commodities used as stores of value, is thus used as an instrument for ivory prices. The supply of illegal ivory is found to be price inelastic with an elasticity of 0.4, with changes in consumer prices passing-through to prices faced by producers at a rate close to unity. Estimations based on a number of …


Spatial Dynamic Models With Short Panels: Evaluating The Impact Of Home Purchase Restrictions On Housing Prices, Naqun Huang, Zhenlin Yang Oct 2021

Spatial Dynamic Models With Short Panels: Evaluating The Impact Of Home Purchase Restrictions On Housing Prices, Naqun Huang, Zhenlin Yang

Research Collection School Of Economics

Since the 2007 housing crisis in the United States, many countries have begun implementing various macroprudential policies to curb the ongoing rise in housing prices. As there is no clear consensus in the literature on the efficacy of these interventions, understanding their short-term impacts is crucial in informing future policy designs. Adapting a new econometric technique, we examine the short-term impact of home purchase restrictions in Singapore, accounting for the short panel nature of the data and the existence of dynamic, spatial, spatiotemporal, and unit-specific effects. Using quarterly housing data over 2012Q4-2014Q2, we find that public housing prices decrease by …


Decree Power In Parliamentary Systems: Theory And Evidence From India, Madhav Shrihari Aney, Shubhankar Dam Oct 2021

Decree Power In Parliamentary Systems: Theory And Evidence From India, Madhav Shrihari Aney, Shubhankar Dam

Research Collection School Of Economics

Decree powers are common to presidential systems; they are rarely found in parliamentary ones. We analyze decree powers in one such rare setting: India. We show that bicameral minority governments in India systematically use ordinances to circumvent parliament and prosecute their legislative agendas. They promulgate more ordinances, enact less legislation, and often repromulgate lapsed ordinances. These patterns suggest that, with bicameral minority governments, the locus of lawmaking shifts to the executive branch. While both majority and minority governments invoke ordinances, the latter do so systematically to get around their parliamentary deficit. In the hands of minority governments, then, the mechanism …


Social Norms And Fertility, Sunha Myong, Junghae Park, Junjian Yi Oct 2021

Social Norms And Fertility, Sunha Myong, Junghae Park, Junjian Yi

Research Collection School Of Economics

We document three stylized facts on marriage and fertility patterns in East Asian societies: (i) their marriage rates are among the highest in the world, but their total fertility is the lowest; (ii) although they have the lowest total fertility, almost all married women have at least one child; and (iii) almost no single women have any children. As these societies have been influenced by Confucianism over millennia, marriage and fertility decisions are potentially shaped by two social norms: the unequal gender division of childcare and the stigma attached to out-of-wedlock births. We present a model incorporating the two social …


Entrepreneurship In Singapore, Jungho Lee Sep 2021

Entrepreneurship In Singapore, Jungho Lee

Research Collection School Of Economics

Singapore has completed its catch-up growth phase and needs to find a new growth engine. Entrepreneurship can contribute to a nation’s productivity growth. The purpose of this chapter is twofold. First, a theoretical framework is presented, along with empirical evidence, to understand government interventions aimed at boosting entrepreneurship. Second, using the framework, the chapter discusses whether Singapore’s current policies are suitable for helping entrepreneurship. The theory demonstrates four reasons why government intervention is needed: (1) resource misallocation, (2) positive externality, (3) entrepreneurial human capital, and (4) tax and default policies. Singapore’s government has implemented various policies that potentially fix market …


Equal-Quantile Rules In Resource Allocation With Uncertain Needs, Yan Long, Jay Sethuraman, Jingyi Xue Sep 2021

Equal-Quantile Rules In Resource Allocation With Uncertain Needs, Yan Long, Jay Sethuraman, Jingyi Xue

Research Collection School Of Economics

A group of agents have uncertain needs on a resource, which must be allocated before uncertainty re-solves. We propose a parametric class of division rules we call equal-quantile rules. The parameter lambda of an equal-quantile rule is the maximal probability of satiation imposed on agents - for each agent, the prob-ability that his assignment is no less than his realized need is at most lambda. It determines the extent to which the resource should be used to satiate agents. If the resource is no more than the sum of the agents' lambda-quantile assignments, it is fully allocated and the rule …


Challenges To Social Mobility In Singapore, Kong Weng Ho, Marcus Kheng Tat Tan Sep 2021

Challenges To Social Mobility In Singapore, Kong Weng Ho, Marcus Kheng Tat Tan

Research Collection School Of Economics

Singapore had achieved impressive economic growth together with a high level of upward mobility since her independence in 1965. However, the growth process might have become more uneven, in addition to diminishing growth for a matured economy like Singapore, which is also a highly open city state subject to competitive forces from other economies. Singapore has fared well recently,
evident from the 2020 social mobility findings reported by the World Economic Forum and the decline in Gini coefficients for the past decade. We discuss the education system in Singapore and the recently formed National Jobs Council, both important institutions for …


On The Market Failure Of “Missing Pioneers”, Shang-Jin Wei, Ziru Wei, Jianhuan Xu Sep 2021

On The Market Failure Of “Missing Pioneers”, Shang-Jin Wei, Ziru Wei, Jianhuan Xu

Research Collection School Of Economics

An influential hypothesis states that export pioneers are too few relative to social optimum because the first exporter's action creates an informational public good for all subsequent exporters. The hypothesis has been invoked to justify certain types of government interventions. We note, however, that such market failure requires two inequalities to hold simultaneously: the discovery cost is neither too low nor too high. Neither has to hold in the data. We propose a structural estimation framework to evaluate the hypothesis, and estimate the parameters based on the customs data of Chinese electronics exports. Our key finding is that "missing pioneers" …


Achieving Price Stability, Hwee Kwan Chow, Taojun Xie Sep 2021

Achieving Price Stability, Hwee Kwan Chow, Taojun Xie

Research Collection School Of Economics

The aim of delivering medium-term price stability is the stated objective of the Monetary Authority of Singapore. To this end, the central bank adopted an unusual exchange rate–based monetary policy framework that has served the economy well over the past decades. However, the shift from the phase of catch-up growth to a mature economy raises the question of whether the current monetary policy framework needs reformulation. Moreover, as global financial integration deepens, surges in cross-border capital flows impact Singapore’s exchange rate and asset prices, which has implications for economic dynamism and inclusion. Since a large and persistent deviation of the …


Rationalizable Implementation In Finite Mechanisms, Y-C Chen, Takashi Kunimoto, Y Sun, S. Xiong Sep 2021

Rationalizable Implementation In Finite Mechanisms, Y-C Chen, Takashi Kunimoto, Y Sun, S. Xiong

Research Collection School Of Economics

We prove that the Maskin monotonicity condition (proposed by Bergemann et al. (2011)) fully characterizes exact rationalizable implementation in an environment with lotteries and transfers. Different from previous papers, our approach possesses many appealing features simultaneously, e.g., finite mechanisms with no integer game or modulo game are used; no transfers are made in any rationalizable profile; the message space is small; the implementation is robust to information perturbations in the sense of Oury and Tercieux (2012).


Singapore As A Sustainable City: Past, Present And The Future, Tomoki Fujii, Rohan Ray Sep 2021

Singapore As A Sustainable City: Past, Present And The Future, Tomoki Fujii, Rohan Ray

Research Collection School Of Economics

Singapore has achieved impressive economic growth over the last half-century. This chapter provides an overview of the major sustainability challenges Singapore has experienced and the policies that have been adopted to address them, particularly in the areas of land use, transportation, waste management, water, and energy. It argues that Singapore has been successful in addressing these challenges owing to sound long-term vision and planning as well as flexibility in the implementation of the policies to tackle them. The chapter provides some discussion on policy options, challenges, and opportunities for making Singapore more sustainable and liveable. Leaders of Singapore have recognised …