International and Area Studies | Open Access Articles

Aware “Must Stay Secular”, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Singapore would be all the poorer if secular organisations become fair game for advocacy and activism that are motivated primarily by faith-based beliefs and convictions, says assistant professor of law Eugene Tan.

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Compromising On Consideration In Singapore: Gay Choon Ing V Loh Sze Ti Terence Peter, Yihan Goh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

It is not often that a judgment contains a reference to Aristotle’s work or a coda at its conclusion. The recent Singapore Court of Appeal judgment of Gay Choon Ing v Loh Sze Ti Terence Peter (delivered by Andrew Phang JA) contained both, the latter of which an extensive judicial exposition on the difficulties (and tentative solutions) relating to the contractual doctrine of consideration. This re-evaluation of consideration at the slightest opportunity is unsurprising, given the conceptual problems that have afflicted the doctrine.There have been various judicial solutions, generally capable of classification into two distinct types: first, through an internal …

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The Efficiency Of Friendliness: Japanese Corporate Governance Succeeds Again Without Hostile Takeovers, Dan W. Puchniak

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

It is widely assumed that hostile takeovers are a prerequisite for an efficient system of corporate governance. This assumption is false. Since the new millennium, Japan has transformed itself from being on the brink of one of the largest economic meltdowns in modern economic history to currently being in the midst of its longest period of postwar economic expansion (2002-2007). This astounding recovery was achieved without a single successful hostile takeover of a major Japanese company. True to its postwar tradition, corporate Japan has successfully restructured through government intervention, bank-driven reallocation of capital, and orchestrated and friendly mergers — the …

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Misaligned Incentives And Mortgage Lending In Asia, Richard Green, Roberto S. Mariano, Andrey Pavlov, Susan Wachter

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper provides a conceptual basis for the price discovery potential for tradable market instruments and specifically the development of mortgage securitization in Asia and the potential dangers of such markets. Nonetheless we argue for the potential importance of securitization in Asia because of its possible role in increasing transparency of the financial sector of Asian economies. We put forth a model explaining how misaligned incentives can lead to bank generated real estate crashes and macroeconomic instability, with or without securitization under certain circumstances. We examine the banking sector’s performance in Asia compared to securitized real estate returns, to provide …

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India Unleashed, Nirmalya Kumar

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Corporations in the developed world increasingly see India as a high-growth market and its companies as acquirers of their assets, global competitors, partners for enhancing the competitiveness of their global value chain and a source of new energy and dreams for the world economy. How did this all happen? The author shares the essence of what he learned from 10 trips to India to interview more than 30 CEOs and top executives who are unleashing the new global power of Indian firms.

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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 …

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Make The Implicit Explicit: Affirming Right To Vote In The Constitution Would Pre-Empt The Possibility Of Abuse By Future Govts, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

There are sound reasons to set out explicitly and entrench in the Singapore Constitution the right to vote and key elements of the way elections are held. While a future government might not remove them entirely, it might derogate from them to the extent that they become unrecognizable.

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Analyzing And Forecasting Business Cycles In A Small Open Economy: A Dynamic Factor Model For Singapore, Hwee Kwan Chow, Keen Meng Choy

Research Collection School Of Economics

A dynamic factor model is applied to a large panel dataset of Singapore’s macroeconomic variables and global economic indicators with the initial objective of analyzing business cycles in a small open economy. The empirical results suggest that four common factors are present in the quarterly time series, which can broadly be interpreted as world, regional, electronics and domestic economic cycles. The estimated factor model explains well the observed fluctuations in real economic activity and price inflation, leading us to use it in forecasting Singapore’s business cycles. We find that the forecasts generated by the factors are generally more accurate than …

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The Talent Of Shu: Qiao Ami And The Intellectual World Of Early Medieval Sichuan, Alan Kam Leung Chan

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Portrayals of the intellectual scene of the early medieval Chinese “Sanguo” or “Three States” period (220–280) generally privilege major figures associated with the state of Wei, such as He Yan and Wang Bi, over those who made their mark in Shu (modern Sichuan) and Wu, the other two states contending for the right to rule “all under Heaven” after the demise of the Han dynasty. Michael Farmer sets out to redress this imbalance through a study of the Shu statesman and historian Qiao Zhou (c. 200–270). The book thus harbors a dual purpose, reflected in its title, for in presenting …

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Singapore Management University Report To Stakeholders 2009 - 2010, Singapore Management University

Report to Stakeholders

Since our inauguration in 2000, we have grown from a simple idea of a group of pioneers who came together - inspired by a new philosophy and approach towards undergraduate education - into a progressive, globally respected university that is widely recognised as a change agent and catalyst for innovation. Over the past 10 years, SMU has proven to be a successful experiment in Singapore’s efforts to strengthen and diversify its higher education sector. We have lived up to our promise of making a difference to our society through the graduates we have produced, through our engagement with the local …

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Multifactor Productivity And Idea Transmission Channels In The Malaysian Economy, Ester Shen Ai Chan

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This paper examines the contribution of multifactor productivity (MFP) growth to output per worker growth in Malaysia from 1961-2000. MFP growth is found to contribute about 74 percent to output per worker growth from 1987-2000, but has only minimal or negative contribution to growth in the earlier years. This paper then attempts to explain why MFP growth has such a large contribution to output per worker growth in the period 1987-2000 by looking at international trade as channel of technology or idea transfer from the G5 countries into Malaysia. MFP grows because ideas from these advanced nations are transferred into …

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Has The Introduction Of Bookbuilding Increased The Efficiency Of China's Ipo Pricing?, Jiehui Fei

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Book-building is commonly adopted in global primary markets and regarded as the most efficient pricing method for accurate IPO pricing by literatures. China has introduced book-building in 2005 to increase IPO pricing accuracy and the capabilities of domestic institutional investors. However, with the current IPO data from China, I find the level of under-pricing has unexpectedly increased after book-building, which is against the empirical studies of a few domestic papers. Secondly, there's some evidence that with better information disclosure from issuer-side through book-building process, the signaling and ex-ante uncertainty effect that previously caused under-pricing has been reduced. But there're unique …

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Multivariate Garch Models For The Greater China Stock Markets, Xiaojun Song

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This paper reviews the commonly used multivariate GARCH models and uses the daily data of the four Greater China region stock markets, namely Hongkong, Shanghai,Shenzhen, and Singapore, and data of Japan as one ex-ogenous variable to investigate the volatility and shocks spillover behavior and to establish the market linkage among the four markets. We find that the volatility spillover between Shanghai and Shenzhen is obvious and correlation contagion is detected. Conditional variance and conditional correlations are time varying and dynamic which conforms to the arguments in most of the literature. Shanghai and Shenzhen present a very high correlation level during …

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The Effects Of Patent Characteristics As Signals On The Growth Of Follow-On Innovations: Evidence From Chinese Patenting Activities In U.S, Wenxin Guo

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

As global trade and business activities intensified, cross-national patenting activities have been playing an increasingly important role in the process of innovation accumulation and growth. However, few studies (to my knowledge) have examined the characteristics of cross-national patents and their relationship to the accumulation and growth of innovation, especially in the context of a developing versus a developed country.
Motivated by the anecdotal evidence and `Patent Signaling Theory'(Spence, 1973), I investigate the possible influential factors on the `quality' of a US patent with a Chinese priority (thereafter `US-CN' patent) and their impact on the growth of follow-on innovation. By developing …

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Introduction, Justin O'Connor, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The cultural and creative industries have become increasingly prominent in many policy agendas in recent years. Not only have governments identified the growing consumer potential for cultural/creative industry products in the home market, they have also seen the creative industry agenda as central to the growth of external markets. This agenda stresses creativity, innovation, small business growth, and access to global markets—all central to a wider agenda of moving from cheap manufacture towards high value-added products and services. The increasing importance of cultural and creative industries in national and city policy agendas is evident in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, South …

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Chinese Philanthropy In Southeast Asia: Between Continuity And Change, Thomas Menkhoff

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

What makes ethnic Chinese philanthropy tick? Thomas Menkhoff looks at what drives prominent Chinese business leaders to give back to society and offers a glimpse of the changing face of ethnic philanthropy.

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Corporate Tax, Capital Structure, And The Accessibility Of Bank Loans: Evidence From China, Liansheng Wu, Heng Yue

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

In this paper, we investigate whether listed firms in China adjust their capital structure in response to an increase in the corporate taxrate. Although theories of capital structure suggest that corporate tax is an important determinant of capital structure, how exogenouschanges of the tax rate affect firms’ leverage decisions has not been fully explored. We examine a unique circumstance in which the Chinesegovernment increased the corporate tax rate of firms that had previously received local government tax rebates. The evidence indicatesthat these firms increased their leverage when the corporate tax rate increased. Further investigation suggests that the adjustment ofleverage was …

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Law School And The Making Of The Student Into A Lawyer: Transformation Of First Year Law Students In The National University Of Singapore, Seow Hon Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This paper examines the impact of legal education and law school on the student's moral development and conception of professional identity, through an empirical study of first year law students of the Class of 2010 at the National University of Singapore. The project aims to increase consciousness of how law school remakes students and develops the moral and professional identity of future lawyers, and to facilitate a dialogue that reshapes legal education to achieve its aims. Given that legal education in Singapore is similar to that in other law schools in common law jurisdictions, the analysis is, with allowances for …

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The Politics Of Imlek, Chang Yau Hoon

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Imlek is a time for colourful parades featuring dances of the lion and other puppets, and performances of Chinese folk rituals on the streets and in Chinese temples. Imlek is also celebrated at Sunday mass in a Catholic church with performances of Chinese songs and dances. The church is decorated in lucky colour red from its carpet to its candles, including the priests’ robes. Decorations and ornaments in the lucky colour red, representing Chineseness, together with Chinese cultural performances like the dragon and lion dances have become products of mass consumption in post-Suharto Indonesia. Major shopping malls decorate their interior …

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Ethnic Fertility Differentials In Vietnam And Their Proximate Determinants, Sajeda Amin, Bussarawan Teerawichitchainan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Southeast Asia‘s rapid economic growth and demographic change have brought divergent fertility behaviors, particularly those of socially excluded groups, into sharper focus. In Vietnam, while the majority Vietnamese and ethnic Chinese, who together account for 85 percent of the country‘s population and benefit the most from the country‘s economic progress, have achieved replacement fertility, certain ethnic minority groups still have total fertility rates exceeding 4. This paper explores proximate determinants of fertility across ethnic groups using a new classification system for ethnicity in Vietnam based on poverty indicators, location, and degree of assimilation of ethnic groups. We decompose components of …

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The Paradox Of Victim-Centrism: Victim Participation At The Khmer Rouge Tribunal, Mahdev Mohan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

It has been claimed - though not proved - that victims will be benefited by participation in international criminal tribunals. This article interrogates this claim in the context of victim participation at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), commonly referred to as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. Based on interviews with Cambodian victims and Tribunal affiliates, it examines why and how the Tribunal permits victims to intervene as les parties civile, pulling together the normative and legal basis for this mode of victim participation. This article does not purport to generalize with confidence about Cambodian victims in general, …

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The Taiwan Question And The One-China Policy: Legal Challenges With Renewed Momentum, Pasha L. Hsieh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The question of Taiwan’s status has faced legal challenges from the one- China policy under both domestic law and international law. The article argues that the state status of the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has never ceased to exist as a result of either the loss of diplomatic recognition or the United Nations Resolution 2758, which transferred the UN seat from the ROC to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In the past decades, the ROC and the PRC possess separate statehoods and have co-existed under the “de jure roof of China.” The evolvement of state practice of …

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Making Sustainable Creative/Cultural Space In Shanghai And Singapore, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Shanghai and Singapore are two economically vibrant Asian cities that have recently adopted creative/cultural economy strategies. In this article I examine new spatial expressions of cultural and economic interests in the two cities: state-vaunted cultural edifices and organically evolved cultural spaces. I discuss the simultaneous precariousness and sustainability of these spaces, focusing on Shanghai's Grand Theatre and Moganshan Lu and on Singapore's Esplanade-Theatres by the Bay and Wessex Estate. Their cultural sustainability is understood as their ability to support the development of indigenous content and local idioms in artistic work. Their social sustainability is examined in terms of the social …

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Chinese New Year In West Kalimantan: Ritual Theatre And Political Circus, Margaret Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Since 2002, when Chinese New Year became a national holiday in Indonesia, spirit medium parades on the fifteen day of the New Year (called Cap Go Meh) have been growing in size in certain West Kalimantan towns, especially Singkawang. This parade in particular has become a major tourist draw-card. Referring to local history, Chinese popular religion and Hakka culture, this article applies a performance analysis methodology to dissect this contemporary phenomenon from religious, historical and inter-ethnic perspectives. It shows how the parades have become enmeshed in current inter-ethnic politics in West Kalimantan, as well as revealing the way that adaptations …

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Update Mental Pictures Of Rural China, Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Women in straw hats stoop over water-logged plots, working together to plant rice seedlings. A weather-worn man trudges behind an ox ploughing his family's field. Farmers throw newly harvested grain in the air so the wind can carry off the chaff. Tour buses navigate past grain carefully laid out on the black-topped road to dry. Though picturesque, these images of rural China perpetuate stereotypes of a conservative culture resistant to change - and affect public policy.

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More Than A Cultural Celebration: The Politics Of Chinese New Year In Post-Suharto Indonesia, Chang Yau Hoon

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In the aftermath of the May 1998 riots that forced President Suharto to step down, ethnic Chinese received unprecedented freedom to assert their long suppressed cultural and religious identity. Following the transition from assimilation to multiculturalism, for the first time in over three decades Chinese culture became more visible and ethnic Chinese could finally enjoy the freedom to celebrate Chinese New Year (Imlek) publicly. This article focuses on the politics of the re-emergent Chinese New Year celebration in the Indonesian public sphere. It demonstrates the significance of Imlek as an ethnic symbol to Chinese-Indonesians. Borrowing Hobsbawm’s concept of “invented tradition”, …

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Profitability Analysis Of Chinese Listed Firms: 1992-2004, Jianjun Niu, Heng Yue, Guohua Jiang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This research collects and analyses the profitability data of Chineselisted companies from 1992 to 2004. Results show that, on average, theprofitability of Chinese listed companies has declined over the period. Post-IPOearnings also exhibit a downward trend. A further analysis reveals that changes inlisted firms’ profitability ratio follow a strong mean reversion pattern.

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Chinese Visions Of World Order: Post-Hegemonic Or A New Hegemony?, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Lately, there has been increasing interest among international relations (IR) scholars in Chinese thought, both as an alternative to Eurocentric IR, and because the PRC as an emerging power will soon have the institutional power to promote its view of the world. Rather than look for suitable Chinese parallels to "international," "security," or other mainstream concepts, this article will examine the concept of "Tianxia All-under-Heaven" to understand Chinese visions of world order. Tianxia is interesting both because it was key to the governance and self-understanding of over two millennia of Chinese empire, and also because discussion of Tianxia is becoming …

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Reasonable Suspicion Or Real Likelihood: A Question Of Semantics? Re Shankar Alan S/O Anant Kulkarni, Lionel Leo, Siyuan Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The law on apparent bias has been mired in some controversy following the High Court decision of Re Shankar Alan s/o Anant Kulkarni, where Sundaresh Menon J.C. seemingly departed from the tentative views of Andrew Phang J.C. (as he then was) in Tang Kin Hwa v. Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners Board on the issue of whether there were any material differences between the “reasonable suspicion of bias” test and the “real likelihood of bias” test, the two formulations of the test for apparent bias that have been variously adopted by different jurisdictions in the common law world. In Tang Kin …

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Unintended Consequences Of Repression: Alliance Formation In South Korea's Democracy Movement (1970-1979), Paul Y. Chang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Research regarding the impact of repression on social movements has yielded conflicting findings; some argue that repression decreases the total quantity of protest events while others argue that it motivates protest. To move beyond this impasse, various scholars have suggested exploring how repression influences the quality of social movements. This study assesses the impact repression had on the information of alliances between different social groups participating in South Korea's democracy movement. Results from negative binomial regression analyses show that repression facilitated the formation of alliances between movement actors at a time when the overall number of protest events decreased. This …

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Full-Text Articles in International and Area Studies

Aware “Must Stay Secular”, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Compromising On Consideration In Singapore: Gay Choon Ing V Loh Sze Ti Terence Peter, Yihan Goh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Efficiency Of Friendliness: Japanese Corporate Governance Succeeds Again Without Hostile Takeovers, Dan W. Puchniak

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Misaligned Incentives And Mortgage Lending In Asia, Richard Green, Roberto S. Mariano, Andrey Pavlov, Susan Wachter

Research Collection School Of Economics

India Unleashed, Nirmalya Kumar

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Intergenerational Earnings Mobility In Singapore And The United States, Irene Y. H. Ng, Xiaoyi Shen, Kong Weng Ho

Research Collection School Of Economics

Make The Implicit Explicit: Affirming Right To Vote In The Constitution Would Pre-Empt The Possibility Of Abuse By Future Govts, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Analyzing And Forecasting Business Cycles In A Small Open Economy: A Dynamic Factor Model For Singapore, Hwee Kwan Chow, Keen Meng Choy

Research Collection School Of Economics

The Talent Of Shu: Qiao Ami And The Intellectual World Of Early Medieval Sichuan, Alan Kam Leung Chan

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Singapore Management University Report To Stakeholders 2009 - 2010, Singapore Management University

Report to Stakeholders

Multifactor Productivity And Idea Transmission Channels In The Malaysian Economy, Ester Shen Ai Chan

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Has The Introduction Of Bookbuilding Increased The Efficiency Of China's Ipo Pricing?, Jiehui Fei

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Multivariate Garch Models For The Greater China Stock Markets, Xiaojun Song

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

The Effects Of Patent Characteristics As Signals On The Growth Of Follow-On Innovations: Evidence From Chinese Patenting Activities In U.S, Wenxin Guo

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Introduction, Justin O'Connor, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Chinese Philanthropy In Southeast Asia: Between Continuity And Change, Thomas Menkhoff

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Corporate Tax, Capital Structure, And The Accessibility Of Bank Loans: Evidence From China, Liansheng Wu, Heng Yue

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Law School And The Making Of The Student Into A Lawyer: Transformation Of First Year Law Students In The National University Of Singapore, Seow Hon Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Politics Of Imlek, Chang Yau Hoon

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Ethnic Fertility Differentials In Vietnam And Their Proximate Determinants, Sajeda Amin, Bussarawan Teerawichitchainan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The Paradox Of Victim-Centrism: Victim Participation At The Khmer Rouge Tribunal, Mahdev Mohan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Taiwan Question And The One-China Policy: Legal Challenges With Renewed Momentum, Pasha L. Hsieh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Making Sustainable Creative/Cultural Space In Shanghai And Singapore, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Chinese New Year In West Kalimantan: Ritual Theatre And Political Circus, Margaret Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Update Mental Pictures Of Rural China, Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

More Than A Cultural Celebration: The Politics Of Chinese New Year In Post-Suharto Indonesia, Chang Yau Hoon

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Profitability Analysis Of Chinese Listed Firms: 1992-2004, Jianjun Niu, Heng Yue, Guohua Jiang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Chinese Visions Of World Order: Post-Hegemonic Or A New Hegemony?, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Reasonable Suspicion Or Real Likelihood: A Question Of Semantics? Re Shankar Alan S/O Anant Kulkarni, Lionel Leo, Siyuan Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Unintended Consequences Of Repression: Alliance Formation In South Korea's Democracy Movement (1970-1979), Paul Y. Chang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences