Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
-
- Asian Studies (48)
- International and Area Studies (48)
- Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration (26)
- Business (22)
- Real Estate (22)
-
- Transportation (16)
- Finance (7)
- Growth and Development (7)
- Urban Studies and Planning (7)
- Political Economy (5)
- Macroeconomics (4)
- Behavioral Economics (3)
- Economic Policy (3)
- Economic Theory (3)
- Income Distribution (3)
- Econometrics (2)
- Environmental Policy (2)
- Family, Life Course, and Society (2)
- International Economics (2)
- Law (2)
- Policy Design, Analysis, and Evaluation (2)
- Social Welfare (2)
- Sociology (2)
- Courts (1)
- Defense and Security Studies (1)
- Environmental Sciences (1)
- Environmental Studies (1)
- Keyword
-
- Singapore (25)
- Housing (7)
- Poverty (4)
- Capital Cities (3)
- Double sampling (3)
-
- Government policy (3)
- Housing policies (3)
- Land supply (3)
- Population Concentration (3)
- Prediction (3)
- Survey costs (3)
- Traffic congestion (3)
- Asia (2)
- Automobiles (2)
- China (2)
- Corruption (2)
- Governance (2)
- Gravity (2)
- HDB (2)
- Harmonic Functions (2)
- Home ownership (2)
- Hong Kong (2)
- House Prices (2)
- Housing policy (2)
- Housing prices (2)
- Inequality (2)
- Institution (2)
- Institutions (2)
- Land value capture (2)
- Monocentric-city model (2)
Articles 31 - 60 of 84
Full-Text Articles in Public Economics
The Fundamental Law Of Highway Congestion Revisited: Evidence From National Expressways In Japan, Wen-Tai Hsu, Hongliang Zhang
The Fundamental Law Of Highway Congestion Revisited: Evidence From National Expressways In Japan, Wen-Tai Hsu, Hongliang Zhang
Research Collection School Of Economics
The fundamental law of highway congestion states that when congested, the travel speed on an expanded expressway reverts to its previous level before the capacity expansion. In this paper, we propose a theory that generalizes this statement and finds that if there exists a coverage effect, that is, the effect of longer road length on traffic conditional on capacity, then the new equilibrium travel speed could be lower than its previous level. Given the fundamental law, the theory predicts that the elasticity of traffic to road capacity is at least 1. We estimate this elasticity for national expressways in Japan …
Further Evidence On The Spatio-Temporal Model Of House Prices In The United States, Badi H. Baltagi, Jing Li
Further Evidence On The Spatio-Temporal Model Of House Prices In The United States, Badi H. Baltagi, Jing Li
Research Collection School Of Economics
Holly, Pesaran, and Yamagata (Journal of Econometrics 2010; 158: 160–173) use a panel of 49 states over the period 1975–2003 to show that state-level real housing prices are driven by economic fundamentals, such as real per capita disposable income, as well as by common shocks, such as changes in interest rates, oil prices and technological change. They apply the common correlated effects estimator of Pesaran (Econometrica 2006; 74(4): 967–101), which takes into account spatial interactions that reflect both geographical proximity and unobserved common factors. This paper replicates their results using a panel of 381 metropolitan statistical areas observed over the …
Affordable Fares, Sustainable Public Transport: The Fare Review Mechanism Committee Report, Sock Yong Phang
Affordable Fares, Sustainable Public Transport: The Fare Review Mechanism Committee Report, Sock Yong Phang
Research Collection School Of Economics
The public transport system in Singapore is the main mode of transport for the majority of the population. It is important that public transport remains generally affordable and accessible, with measures to help various commuter groups through fare assistance schemes. Household surveys show that public transport has become more affordable as a proportion of monthly household income over the years. Public transport fares have increased, but at a much lower rate than increases in income. At the same time, increasing fuel costs and other changes in the public transport landscape since 2005 mean that the public transport industry faces declining …
Modeling Myopia: Application To Non-Renewable Resource Extraction, Tomoki Fujii
Modeling Myopia: Application To Non-Renewable Resource Extraction, Tomoki Fujii
Research Collection School Of Economics
We develop a parsimonious model of myopia with an infinitesimal period of commitment as an extension to a standard dynamic optimization in a continuous-time environment. We clearly distinguish the processes of planning future controls and choosing the current control, which makes the model both analytically and numerically convenient. In its application to a simple non-renewable resource extraction problem, we show that whether the terminal time is free or fixed determines the appropriateness of the approximation to myopic agents by constant discounting. We also show that the expiry of extraction permits may be useful in the presence of myopia.
Housing Policies In Singapore: Evaluation Of Recent Proposals And Recommendations For Reform, Sock Yong Phang, David Kuo Chuen Lee, Alan Cheong, Kok Fai Phoon, Karol Wee
Housing Policies In Singapore: Evaluation Of Recent Proposals And Recommendations For Reform, Sock Yong Phang, David Kuo Chuen Lee, Alan Cheong, Kok Fai Phoon, Karol Wee
Research Collection School Of Economics
The Singapore housing market is unusual in its high homeownership rate, the dominance of HDB housing, and the extensive intervention of the government in regulating housing supply and demand in both the HDB and private housing sectors. Recent rapid population increases in a low interest rate and high global liquidity environment has resulted in accelerated house prices increases in Singapore. Earlier this year, the government launched “Our Singapore Conversation” of which discussion on housing policies constitutes one major component. This “conversation” comes in the wake of several consecutive rounds of measures to stabilize housing prices using various instruments. This paper …
Policy Responses In An Unstable Globalized Economy: Multi-Stressed Low-Earning Families In Singapore, Irene Y. H. Ng, Kong Weng Ho
Policy Responses In An Unstable Globalized Economy: Multi-Stressed Low-Earning Families In Singapore, Irene Y. H. Ng, Kong Weng Ho
Research Collection School Of Economics
The Singapore government responded swiftly to the 2008 global recession, doling out a range of policies in aid of all levels of wage earners. This paper explores the impacts of economic trends and government policies on low-wage earners. Using a theoretical model and empirical data from a pilot study of recipients of a government Work Support Program, it demonstrates the effects of socioeconomic factors on multi-stressed low-earning families. It discusses the adequacy of current policies in addressing the multiple stressors experienced by low-wage earners.
Do Singaporeans Spend Too Much On Housing?, Sock Yong Phang
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 …
Impact Of Food Inflation On Poverty In The Philippines, Tomoki Fujii
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.
Money And Asset Prices With Uninsurable Risks, Nicolas L. Jacquet, Serene Tan
Money And Asset Prices With Uninsurable Risks, Nicolas L. Jacquet, Serene Tan
Research Collection School Of Economics
We develop a model where the coexistence of money and a higher yielding asset is endogenously obtained when no restriction is placed on the use of either object as a medium of exchange. Due to the presence of uninsurable risks, agents have, in equilibrium, di⁄erent relative valuations of the asset to money, and hence, the use of money as a means of payment is strictly preferred. This endogenous di⁄erence in the willingness of agents to use money over the asset implies that money carries a greater liquidity premium than the asset. We obtain that the asset strictly dominates money in …
Isolated Capital Cities, Accountability And Corruption: Evidence From Us States, Filipe R. Campante, Quoc-Anh Do
Isolated Capital Cities, Accountability And Corruption: Evidence From Us States, Filipe R. Campante, Quoc-Anh Do
Research Collection School Of Economics
We show that isolated capital cities are robustly associated with greater levels of corruption across US states. In particular, this is the case when we use the variation induced by the exogenous location of a state’s centroid to instrument for the concentration of population around the capital city. We then show that different mechanisms for holding state politicians accountable are also affected by the spatial distribution of population: newspapers provide greater coverage of state politics when their audiences are more concentrated around the capital, and voter turnout in state elections is greater in places that are closer to the capital. …
Supply Elasticity Of Housing, Kyunghwan Kim, Sock-Yong Phang, Susan Wachter
Supply Elasticity Of Housing, Kyunghwan Kim, Sock-Yong Phang, Susan Wachter
Research Collection School Of Economics
The supply elasticity of housing determines how quickly house prices respond to economic shocks and this has many real economic consequences. Malpezzi and Maclennan (2001) describes its importance in housing market analysis: „most housing models, and most policy analysis hinge on explicit or implicit estimates of the price elasticity of supply of housing: does the market respond to demand side shocks with more supply or higher prices‟. However, as pointed out by Quigley (1979), there exist real analytical difficulties in modeling the supply of housing. Attempting to measure the flow of housing services provided by the stock of housing is …
Quasi-Option Value Under Strategic Interactions, Tomoki Fujii, Ryuichiro Ishikawa
Quasi-Option Value Under Strategic Interactions, Tomoki Fujii, Ryuichiro Ishikawa
Research Collection School Of Economics
We consider a simple two-period model of irreversible investment under strategic interactions between two players. In this setup, we show that the quasi-option value may cause some conceptual difficulties. In case of asymmetric information, decentralized investment decisions fail to induce first-best allocations. Therefore a regulator may not be able to exercise the option to delay the decision to develop. We also show that information-induced inefficiency may arise in a game situation and that under certain assumptions inefficiency can be eliminated by sending asymmetric information to the players, even when the regulator faces informational constraints. Our model is potentially applicable to …
Public Housing: Appreciating Assets?, Sock Yong Phang
Public Housing: Appreciating Assets?, Sock Yong Phang
Research Collection School Of Economics
The topic of HDB housing is one that is close to the hearts and minds of the majority of Singaporeans. The first part of the presentation will provide a brief overview of price trends in Singapore’s housing sector. The second part delves into the market and policy factors behind the rapid increase in HDB housing prices since 2006. The monograph “Reflections on Housing a Nation” published by the Ministry of National Development in February 2011, contains numerous statements on the goals of housing policy. Briefly, the government is committed to affordable home ownership as a major pillar of Singapore’s public …
One Mandarin Benefits The Whole Clan: Hometown Infrastructure And Nepotism In An Autocracy, Kieu-Trang Nguyen, Quoc-Anh Do, Anh Tran
One Mandarin Benefits The Whole Clan: Hometown Infrastructure And Nepotism In An Autocracy, Kieu-Trang Nguyen, Quoc-Anh Do, Anh Tran
Research Collection School Of Economics
Duplicate record, see https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/1383. This paper studies nepotism by government officials in an authoritarian regime. We collect a unique dataset of political promotions of officials in Vietnam and estimate their impact on public infrastructure in their hometowns. We find strong positive effects on several outcomes, some with lags, including roads to villages, marketplaces, clean water access, preschools, irrigation, and local radio broadcasters, as well as the hometown’s propensity to benefit from the State’s “poor commune support program”. Nepotism is not limited to only top-level officials, pervasive even among those without direct authority over hometown budgets, stronger when the hometown chairperson’s …
Dangerous To Draw Down Reserves, Augustine H. H. Tan
Dangerous To Draw Down Reserves, Augustine H. H. Tan
Research Collection School Of Economics
As at the end of last year, our official reserves stood at $288 billion compared to a gross domestic product of $304 billion and bank deposits (domestic bank units or DBU) of $781 billion. In the event of a financial meltdown, the reserves would be far too small to bail out our banks. During the recent global financial crisis I was very anxious for Singapore when the Monetary Authority of Singapore announced a guarantee (until end last year) for all our DBU deposits of up to $150 billion.
Unilateral Measures And Emissions Mitigation, Shurojit Chatterji, Sayantan Ghosal, Sean Walsh, John Whalley
Unilateral Measures And Emissions Mitigation, Shurojit Chatterji, Sayantan Ghosal, Sean Walsh, John Whalley
Research Collection School Of Economics
We discuss global climate mitigation that builds on existing unilateral measures to cut emissions. We document and discuss the rationale for such unilateral measures argue that such measures have the potential to generate positive spillover effects both within and across countries. In a simple dynamic model of learning we show that while single countries on their own may never get to the point of switching completely to low emission activities, a learning process with positive spillovers across nations is more likely to deliver a global switch to low emissions. We discuss the key features of a new global Intellectual Property …
Estimation Of Bidder Valuations In An Fcc Spectrum Auction, Jungwon Yeo
Estimation Of Bidder Valuations In An Fcc Spectrum Auction, Jungwon Yeo
Research Collection School Of Economics
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) uses auctions to allocate radio spectrum frequencies to wireless service providers. The innovation of the auction design is that it offers many heterogeneous licenses simultaneously in one ascending auction. This paper develops an empirical model and procedure to estimate bidder valuations. Given that the complex nature of the auction does not admit formal modeling in a general setting, I do not explore a particular model of equilibrium bidding. Instead, I propose two revealed preference inequalities which should hold in any reasonable model of these auctions. The first inequality requires that a bidder never bids on …
Affordable Homeownership Policy: Implications For Housing Markets, Sock Yong Phang
Affordable Homeownership Policy: Implications For Housing Markets, Sock Yong Phang
Research Collection School Of Economics
Affordable homeownership is a policy that is often accorded a great deal of policy attention by governments of many countries. In this paper, we examine the market implications of setting a housing price to income ratio target for a market segment by the government. The policy requires active intervention by the government with regard to the targeted sector. We use a simple model of the housing market with a homeownership affordability target to derive the market implications of such targets. In the presence of uncertainty and resource constraints, the objective of homeownership affordability is achieved for the targeted group at …
Transformation Of The Urban Rail Sector Through Ppp, Sock-Yong Phang
Transformation Of The Urban Rail Sector Through Ppp, Sock-Yong Phang
Research Collection School Of Economics
The recent proliferation of Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects in numerous cities has transformed the urban rail sector. The enthusiasm for PPPs can be explained by improved understanding of efficiency gains and risks of bundling and unbundling tasks as well as availability and lower cost of private sector finance. The four main PPP approaches identified are: (i) development of new systems through DBFOs (Design- Build-Finance-Operate); (ii) concessioning of rail and subway services; (iii) sale of stateowned operators through share issue privatisation; and (iv) PPPs for infrastructure maintenance and upgrading. This paper examines examples of successes and failures to better understand …
Subnational Credit Rating: A Comparative Review, Lili Liu, Kim Song Tan
Subnational Credit Rating: A Comparative Review, Lili Liu, Kim Song Tan
Research Collection School Of Economics
This paper surveys methodological issues in subnational credit ratings and highlights key challenges for developing countries. Subnational borrowing from capital markets has been on the rise owing to fiscal decentralization and demand for infrastructure investments. A prerequisite for accessing capital markets, subnational credit ratings have also emerged as a part of broader reform for fiscal sustainability. They facilitate a more transparent budgetary and financial management system. The global financial crisis makes subnational credit ratings more relevant, as they contribute to fiscal risk evaluations and fiscal adjustment. In addition to subnationals’ own credit strength, the creditworthiness of the sovereign and the …
Competition Law And The International Transport Sectors, Sock Yong Phang
Competition Law And The International Transport Sectors, Sock Yong Phang
Research Collection School Of Economics
This article charts the evolving regulation of cooperation and coordination between international transport firms, in particular those operating within the liner shipping and international air transport sectors. There has been a long history of exemption of these sectors from the rules and regulations of antitrust or competition law. In the past three decades, regulatory reforms and privatization have, however, subjected these sectors to competitive forces that have transformed these industries. With the introduction of competition law in many jurisdictions, the justifications for their continued exemption have come under intense scrutiny. In the late 19705, the US initiated deregulation of its …
Technology, Unilateral Commitments And Cumulative Emissions Reduction, Shurojit Chatterji, Sayantan Ghosal
Technology, Unilateral Commitments And Cumulative Emissions Reduction, Shurojit Chatterji, Sayantan Ghosal
Research Collection School Of Economics
In this article, we argue that weak property rights over transnational pollution and the limited threat of retaliatory punishments blunts the effectiveness of a broad-based multilateral agreement to deliver the emission reductions required to mitigate climate change. Instead, we propose a policy framework that builds on unilateral commitments, endogenous innovation and technology transfer that could lead to cumulative emissions reduction by altering the participation constraints of nations over time.
Intergenerational Earnings Mobility In Singapore And The United States, Irene Y. H. Ng, Xiaoyi Shen, Kong Weng Ho
Intergenerational Earnings Mobility In Singapore And The United States, Irene Y. H. Ng, Xiaoyi Shen, Kong Weng Ho
Research Collection School Of Economics
This study compared intergenerational earnings mobility in Singapore and the United States by replicating the sample criteria in the Singapore National Youth Survey on the U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics. The mean estimated earnings elasticities are almost identical: 0.26 in Singapore and 0.28 in the United States. Transformed to 0.44 and 0.47 respectively to reflect permanent status, mobility in the two countries is moderately low compared internationally. The finding of similar mobility is not surprising given that the two countries have similar economic realities, welfare systems, education regimes, and labor structures. Policy makers face the daunting challenge of overcoming …
Keeping Dictators Honest: The Role Of Population, Quoc-Anh Do, Filipe R. Campante
Keeping Dictators Honest: The Role Of Population, Quoc-Anh Do, Filipe R. Campante
Research Collection School Of Economics
In order to explain the apparently paradoxical presence of acceptable governance in many non-democratic regimes, economists and political scientists have focused mostly on institutions acting as de facto checks and balances. In this paper, we propose that population plays a similar role in guaranteeing the quality of governance and redistribution. We argue and demonstrate with historical evidence that the concentration of population around the policy making center serves as an insurgency threat to a dictatorship, inducing it to yield to more redistribution and better governance. We bring this centered concept of population concentration to the data through the Centered Index …
A Centered Index Of Spatial Concentration: Axiomatic Approach With An Application To Population And Capital Cities, Filipe R. Campante, Quoc-Anh Do
A Centered Index Of Spatial Concentration: Axiomatic Approach With An Application To Population And Capital Cities, Filipe R. Campante, Quoc-Anh Do
Research Collection School Of Economics
We construct an axiomatic index of spatial concentration around a center or capital point of interest, a concept with wide applicability from urban economics, economic geography and trade, to political economy and industrial organization. We propose basic axioms (decomposability and monotonicity) and refinement axioms (order preservation, convexity, and local monotonicity) for how the index should respond to changes in the underlying distribution. We obtain a unique class of functions satisfying all these properties, defined over any n-dimensional Euclidian space: the sum of a decreasing, isoelastic function of individual distances to the capital point of interest, with specific boundaries for the …
How Well Can We Target Aid With Rapidly Collected Data? Empirical Results For Poverty Mapping From Cambodia, Tomoki Fujii
How Well Can We Target Aid With Rapidly Collected Data? Empirical Results For Poverty Mapping From Cambodia, Tomoki Fujii
Research Collection School Of Economics
We compare commune-level poverty rankings in Cambodia based on three different methods: small-area estimation, principal component analysis using aggregate data, and interviews with local leaders. While they provide reasonably consistent rankings, the choice of the ranking method matters. In order to assess the potential losses from moving away from census-based poverty mapping, we used the concentration curve. Our calculation shows that about three-quarters of the potential gains from geographic targeting may be lost by using aggregate data. The usefulness of aggregate data in general would depend on the cost of data collection.
Numerical Analysis Of Non-Constant Pure Rate Of Time Preference: A Model Of Climate Policy, Tomoki Fujii, Larry Karp
Numerical Analysis Of Non-Constant Pure Rate Of Time Preference: A Model Of Climate Policy, Tomoki Fujii, Larry Karp
Research Collection School Of Economics
When current decisions affect welfare in the far-distant future, as with climate change, the use of a declining pure rate of time preference (PRTP) provides potentially important modeling flexibility. The difficulty of analyzing models with non-constant PRTP limits their application. We describe and provide software (available online) to implement an algorithm to numerically obtain a Markov perfect equilibrium for an optimal control problem with non-constant PRTP. We apply this software to a simplified version of the numerical climate change model used in the Stern Review. For our calibration, the policy recommendations are less sensitive to the PRTP than widely believed. …
Urban Rail Transit Ppps: Survey And Risk Assessment Of Recent Strategies, Sock-Yong Phang
Urban Rail Transit Ppps: Survey And Risk Assessment Of Recent Strategies, Sock-Yong Phang
Research Collection School Of Economics
The proliferation of urban rail transit public-private partnerships (PPPs) in Latin America and Southeast Asia is a recent phenomenon. This paper first reviews the theoretical literature on the public procurement versus PPP decision in the context of rail transit and assesses the risks involved in entering these partnerships. The urban rail transit PPP approaches adopted in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Singapore, Hong Kong, and London are described and classified into four broad approaches: (i) the development of new systems through Design-Build-Finance-Operate (DBFO), (ii) the concessioning of rail and subway services, (iii) the sale of state-owned operators …
The Singapore Model Of Housing And The Welfare State, Sock Yong Phang
The Singapore Model Of Housing And The Welfare State, Sock Yong Phang
Research Collection School Of Economics
While Singapore is not generally regarded as a welfare state, the provision of housing welfare on a large scale has been a defining feature of its welfare system. The extensive housing system has played a useful role in raising savings and homeownership rates as well as contributing to sustained economic growth in general and development of the housing sector in particular. Few would dispute the description of Singapore’s housing policies as 'phenomenally successful' (Ramesh, 2003). Singapore’s economic growth record in the past four decades has brought it from third world to first world status (Lee, 2000), with homeownership widespread at …
Does Governance Matter? Yes, No Or Maybe Some Evidence From Developing Asia, M. G. Quibria
Does Governance Matter? Yes, No Or Maybe Some Evidence From Developing Asia, M. G. Quibria
Research Collection School Of Economics
This paper seeks to explore the relationship between economic growth and governance performance in Asian developing economies. This exploration yields some interesting conclusions. First, notwithstanding its tremendous economic achievements, the state of governance in Asia is not stellar by international comparison. Indeed, a majority of these countries seem to suffer from a governance deficit. Second, contrary to our expectation, data do not suggest any strong positive link between governance and growth: paradoxically, countries that exhibit surpluses in governance on average grew much slower than those with deficits. The paper ends with some conjecture about this apparent paradox.