International and Area Studies Commons^™

Future Job Prospects In Singapore, Hian Teck Hoon

Research Collection School Of Economics

No abstract provided.

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.

The Creation And Economic Regulation Of Housing Markets: A Comparison Of The Experiences Of Singapore And Korea, Sock-Yong Phang

Research Collection School Of Economics

Privatization, creation of markets and economic regulation are terms that few would immediately associate with the housing sector. Mainstream housing markets in most of the free market economies of the developed world are regarded as competitive markets, with little need for economic regulation of the market. Regulations that attempt to control behavior directly are generally limited to policies relating to rent control, the provision of rental housing or rental allowances for lower income groups, as well as land use regulations and building controls.

The housing sectors of Singapore and Korea are highly unusual in the extent of government involvement and …

Review Of Roger Ames And David Hall, Daodejing: Making This Life Significant: A Philosophical Translation, Alan Kam Leung Chan

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Is there a need for another translation of the Laozi Daodejing? Although there are already over 100 translations in English alone, this present effort by Ames and Hall marks a welcome addition, in that it offers an engaging philosophical account of the Daodejing as chiefly concerned with “making this life significant.”

Effects Of Electronic Trading On The Hang Seng Index Futures Market, Joseph K. W. Fung, Donald Lien, Yiuman Tse, Yiu Kuen Tse

Research Collection School Of Economics

This investigation of the switch from open-outcry trading to electronic trading on the Hang Seng Index (HSI) futures contract reveals that the bid–ask spread narrows and the futures price plays more of a role in information transmission. Factors, such as anonymity in trading and fast order execution in electronic trading, attract informed traders to the futures market, enhancing the information flow. Our results provide support for the worldwide trend of transforming open-outcry markets into electronic trading platforms

Economic Transition And New Patterns Of Parent-Adult Child Coresidence In Urban China, Qian Forrest Zhang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This study uses national data from the 1996 Life History and Social change in Contemporary China survey (N = 3,087) to gauge the effect of the economic transition on parent-adult child coresidence in urban China. Previous studies find that, thanks to state actions, traditional patterns in coresidence persisted in post-Mao urban China. This study still finds high levels of coresidence. China's aging population, coupled with an underdeveloped social security system, means that the traditional role of family will remain strong. It also uncovers three new patterns, however, best explained as caused by changes in the economic realm. First, the coresidence …

Remembering The Future: Utopia, Empire And Harmony In 21st Century International Theory, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Using a comparative approach to international relations theory, this article examines how ancient ideas are being recycled to describe world order in the 21st century. In particular, it provides a thick description of three models of utopia in global politics - Great Harmony and Harmony-with-difference from China, and Empire from Hardt and Negri. Using an unexplored set of Chinese-language texts, the article first excavates how Communist Party intellectuals in China have been writing about the ancient Confucian ideal of Great Harmony as a way of promoting the Peoples Republic of Chinas role as a Great Power in the 21st century. …

The Singapore-India Connection: A Tale Of Two Industrial Parks, Caroline Yeoh, Wongso Kevin, Wee Tan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In recent times, Singapore has, as part of its regionalisation strategy, established industrial parks in various countries, including China, Vietnam, and India. The parks are marketed as a winning combination of the host country’s unique location advantages and Singapore-style efficiency and management know-how. Singapore’s foray into India, in particular, was marked by the setting up of the ITPL in Bangalore; a development that met with great success. However, with global businesses shifting interests towards India, and competing industrial parks emerging to meet the increasing demand, ITPL is faced with stiff competition from other industrial parks; and Singapore has since announced …

Development Of Land Rental Markets In Rural Zhejiang: Growth Of Off-Farm Jobs And Institution Building, Qian Forrest Zhang, Qingguo Ma, Xu Xu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

We employ survey data collected in 2001 in Zhejiang province to investigate patterns and determinants of land market development. Previous studies have noted the correlation between growth of off-farm jobs and rental-market development at the aggregate level, but failed empirically to demonstrate mechanisms at the disaggregate level. Our analyses find concrete evidence at the household level connecting developments in labour and land markets. Growth in off-farm jobs allow rural households to transfer labour out of farming and prompt them to relinquish land rights, generating a supply of land that drives rental activities. We also go beyond interactions between factor markets …

Free Will's A Gamble, Seow Hon Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The debate over whether Singapore should have a casino has turned from the contest between moral values and social repercussions, on the one hand, and economic values on the other, to whether Singaporeans can be trusted to act responsibly. Put another way, the issue now seems to be whether the approach should be paternalistic, with all its connotations of the nanny state protecting the individual from himself.

True Believers Or Moral Absolutists, Seow Hon Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The recent American presidential elections brought to the fore the question of what place moral values have in public decision-making when traditional moral values are not espoused by all in a pluralist society. Even if traditional values - seen as absolutist - are imposed on others through a democratic electoral process, that imposition, particularly in hot button issues like abortion and same-sex marriage, remains difficult to accept.

The Relationship Between Governance Structure And Risk Management Approaches In Japanese Venture Capital Firms, Toru Yoshikawa, Phillip H. Phan, Jonathan Linton

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper attempts to understand what drives Japanese venture capital (JVC) fund managers to select either active managerial monitoring or portfolio diversification to manage their firms' investment risks [J. Bus. Venturing 4 (1989) 231]. Unlike U.S. venture capitalists that use active managerial monitoring to gain private information in order to maximize returns [J. Finance 50 (1995) 301], JVCs have traditionally used portfolio diversification to attenuate investment risks [Hamada, Y., 2001. Nihon no Bencha Kyapitaru no Genkyo (Current State of Japanese Venture Capital), Nihon Bencha Gakkai VC Seminar, May 7]. We found that performance pay is positively related to active monitoring …

True Believers Or Moral Absolutists, Seow Hon Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The recent American presidential elections brought to the fore the question of what place moral values have in public decision-making when traditional moral values are not espoused by all in a pluralist society. Even if traditional values - seen as absolutist - are imposed on others through a democratic electoral process, that imposition, particularly in hot button issues like abortion and same-sex marriage, remains difficult to accept.

Free Will's A Gamble, Seow Hon Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The debate over whether Singapore should have a casino has turned from the contest between moral values and social repercussions, on the one hand, and economic values on the other, to whether Singaporeans can be trusted to act responsibly. Put another way, the issue now seems to be whether the approach should be paternalistic, with all its connotations of the nanny state protecting the individual from himself.

Singapore: Always Restructuring, Avoiding Convergence And Reining In Divergence, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Even as the government declares Asia - with China and India at the forefront - as a region of change and opportunities, the fear of becoming irrelevant ensures that Singapore will not relent in its drive to stay ahead of the regional economic competition. For instance, the search for new industrial winners, after the successful industrial programmes in electronics and the biomedical sciences, has begun resolutely with the formation of a high-powered ministerial committee to mould Singapore's research and development destiny. Restructuring in Singapore is a governing norm that is very much invoked as a policy necessity and a way …

The Contribution Of A Satellite Market To Price Discovery: Evidence From The Singapore Exchange, Vicentiu Covrig, David K. Ding, Buen Sin Low

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The Singapore Exchange (SGX), a small satellite market, successfully competes with a large home market, the Osaka Securities Exchange (OSE), in trading the Nikkei 225 futures index. In this paper, we investigate the contribution of the SGX to price discovery and shed light on the reasons for its continued success. Evidence is provided from information revelation and price discovery of three competing but informationally linked markets of the Nikkei 225 index - domestic spot (Tokyo Stock Exchange), domestic futures (OSE), and foreign futures (SGX), which represents the satellite market. Overall, the futures market contributes 77% to price discovery, with the …

The Antecedents Of Value Creation In Singapore Corporation, Wee Liang Tan, Teck Meng Tan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The impetus for value creation has led to greater interest in encouraging entrepreneurship within organizations (intrapreneurship). The intrapreneurship literature reveals general agreement that organizational entrepreneurship flourishes where the environmental conditions of an organization are most favorable. However, there is little empirical research examining the relationship of the organizational climate and the intentions of employees to be intrapreneurs, and their actual participation in such activities. This paper reports a study on the elements of organizational climate on intrapreneurship attitudes, intentions and actions on the part of middle managers in corporations in Singapore.

The Making Of An Innovator, Hian Teck Hoon

Research Collection School Of Economics

Innovators experiment with things to come up with new ideas to improve the quality of existing products, develop differentiated or new products and re-organise business processes to lower costs. In a big corporation, there might be a whole R&D department where innovators are employed to design new blueprints so the company can constantly make new offerings. But innovators can also be found in small enterprises tinkering with recipes, for example, to win new customers. Innovators no doubt derive pleasure from their creative work. Yet, in modern economies, they must be employed in a firm that successfully translates their innovative activity …

A Var Analysis Of Singapore's Monetary Transmission Mechanism, Hwee Kwan Chow

Research Collection School Of Economics

The Singapore economy has experienced greater business cycle fluctuations in recent years, being subject to recurrent shocks from the external environment. Given the extreme openness of the economy—Singapore’s export share of GDP is approximately 180%—it is not surprising that the main cause of the increase in economic volatility is a rise in the frequency and magnitude of exogenous shocks. These include the downswing in the global electronics industry in 1996–97, the Asian financial crisis in 1997–98, the burst of the information technology bubble in 2001, and the outbreak of the SARS respiratory disease in 2003. Such a close sequence of …

Transborder Industrialization: A Comparative Study Of The Measured Success Of Singapore's Industrial Parks In Vietnam And India, Kevin Wongso, Caroline Yeoh, David, David,

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

No abstract provided.

Board Structure, Political Influence And Firm Performance - An Empirical Study On Publicly Listed Firms In China, Dongping Han, Fusheng Wang, Heng Yue

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

The board of directors is the cornerstone of any effective corporate governance system. A well-structured board can effectively monitor and motivate management of a company for the benefit of the company's shareholders. This paper investigates the relationship between board structure and firm performance using a sample of 490 publicly listed firms in China. The characteristics of board structure we examined include: board size, inside/outside/independent directors, CEO/Chair duality, stock holdings of directors, the rewards to directors and aged directors. We find significant relationship between firm performance and three characteristics: the rewards to director, the stock holdings of directors and the existence …

The Eu And The Npt: Testing The New European Nonproliferation Strategy, Clara Portela

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Only a few years ago, the idea that the European Union (EU) could become a significant actor in the nuclear nonproliferation regime would have met with great scepticism. An organisation comprising nuclear weapon states (NWS) along with non-nuclear weapons states (NNWS) - some of who are disarmament-minded - would have been considered incapable of framing any common response to nuclear proliferation. And yet, today we find that the EU is establishing itself as an actor in the field of nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and that it has even developed a Strategy to guide its endeavours.This article will …

Embedded Co-Operation In The Context Of Singapore's Investment Enclaves In Indonesia And Vietnam: A Strategy Reconsidered, Caroline Yeoh, Siang Yeung Wong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Regional industrial development projects - development packages assembled, administered and promoted by consortia of sovereign national governments - are new players in the global competition for foreign investments. Singapore's flagship projects in China have received much attention. Our paper reports on Singapore's lesser-known projects in Indonesia and Vietnam. The strategic intent of these transborder industrialization initiatives is to set in place a configuration for the city-state to restructure its domestic industries, and yet retain important linkages with production centers in low-cost environments. The effectiveness of this stratagem is evaluated from the perspectives of the tenant firms, as well as from …

Singapore's Foray Into Bangalore, India: An Empirical Review, Amrit Vaidyanath, Caroline Yeoh, Siang Yeung Wong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Singapore’s regionalization stratagem led to the establishment of industrial parks in China, India and several South-East Asian countries. The strategic intent behind these overseas projects was two-fold: exporting Singapore’s competencies such as management know-how, technological capabilities and corrupt-free administration to regions where such positive factors were lacking and secondly, exploiting comparative advantages that each region had to offer. This paper investigates Singapore’s foray into India, through the technology park in Bangalore. It evaluates the location specific benefits of the site, primarily in terms of abundant and low-cost labor resources. Accompanied by empirical findings, this study finds that, while location-specific merits …

Singapore's Regionalization Blueprint: The Empirics Of The Case For Selective Intervention, Caroline Yeoh, Siang Yeung Wong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

No abstract provided.

Exporting Expertise: A Note On Singapore's Gambit In Bangalore, India, Caroline Yeoh, Amrit Vaidyanath, Siang Yeung Wong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Infrastructure can be unreliable and administration subject to corruption in Asia’s rapidly emerging economies. This context presented Singapore with unique opportunities to export its ‘positive reputation’ to locations where these attributes are less certain, through the provision of superior infrastructure, the ability to negotiate investment concessions and, where existing, through the links to influential business groups in the investment location. This strategic initiative is premised on the perception that Singapore’s good relations with multinationals, as well as “connections” with Asian business networks, will give the industrial-township projects a marketing advantage. To complement the extensive literature on Singapore’s flagship projects in …

Integrating Business Opportunities In An Emerging Asian Economy: Perspectives From Singapore's Gambit In Vietnam, Ai Lin Leong, David David, Caroline Yeoh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

To date, Singapore’s regionalization strategy has been applied in China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam through the establishment of industrial parks. The nexus between these ‘clones’ is the implantation of Singapore’s positive business ethos amidst more uncertain host environments. Leveraging on world-class infrastructure, efficiency and location-specific advantages, these industrial parks present themselves as low-cost investment enclaves. This paper focuses on the regional industrial development project assembled, administered and promoted by the sovereign national governments of Singapore and Vietnam. Using in-depth case studies, it examines the push-pull factors for firms with different structures. It finds that progress in this privileged foreign investment …

Expectations Formation And Forecasting Of Vehicle Demand: An Empirical Study Of The Vehicle Quota Auctions In Singapore, Sing-Fat Chu, Winston T. H. Koh, Yiu Kuen Tse

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper studies the expectations formation and forecasting of vehicle demand in Singapore under the vehicle quota system. Under the system, a car buyer must first bid for a vehicle license in monthly auctions in order to purchase a new car. We construct an econometric model to test the hypothesis that past bid distributions of the license auctions contain information that car buyers can use to update their expectations about the intensity of market demand, forecast the license premiums and formulate their bidding strategies in future auctions. Our empirical analysis indicates that past bid distributions have a good degree of …

The Singapore "Advantage" In India: A Perception Or A Premium?, Alexandra Si-Lan Wee, Ai Lin Leong, Caroline Yeoh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Singapore’s regionalisation strategy has been applied in various countries, such as China, Vietnam and India, through the establishment of industrial parks. The parks are marketed as a winning combination of the host country’s unique location advantages and Singapore style efficiency and management know-how. Singapore’s foray into India was marked by the setting up of the ITPL in Bangalore, and furthered by its venture into a future phase of HITEC City, based on her success in Bangalore. However, with global businesses shifting interests towards India, and competing industrial parks emerging to meet the increasing demand, ITPL is faced with stiff competition …

Expectations Formation And Forecasting Of Vehicle Demand: An Empirical Study Of The Vehicle Quota Auctions In Singapore, Sing-Fat Chu, Winston T. H. Koh, Yiu Kuen Tse

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper studies expectations formation and forecasting of vehicle demand in Singapore under the vehicle quota system. Under the system, a car buyer must first bid for a vehicle license in monthly auctions in order to purchase a new car. We construct an econometric model to test the hypothesis that past bid distributions of the license auctions contain information that car buyers can use to update their expectations about the intensity of market demand, forecast license premiums and formulate their bidding strategies in future auctions. Our empirical analysis indicates that past bid distributions have a good degree of predictive power …