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Full-Text Articles in Asian Studies

Wage Inequality, Intergenerational Mobility, And Education In Singapore, Kong Weng Ho Oct 2007

Wage Inequality, Intergenerational Mobility, And Education In Singapore, Kong Weng Ho

Research Collection School Of Economics

Accompanying Singapore’s phenomenal economic growth over the past four decades has been a rapid increase in educational attainment over the years. In 1960, the mean years of schooling for residents aged 25 and over was 3.14 years; in 2006, it was 9.3 years. This dramatic increase in the supply of skilled labour in all sectors of the economy helped to power Singapore’s high growth rates over the past few decades of economic development, which also saw declining wage inequality and high upward intergenerational mobility in education. However, we need to ask if these trends will continue in the future and …


Modeling Country Risks: An Asian Perspective, Swee Liang Tan, G. K. Randolph Tan Sep 2007

Modeling Country Risks: An Asian Perspective, Swee Liang Tan, G. K. Randolph Tan

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper investigates the use of the Markov Regime Switching Model (MRSM) as a means to track changes in the levels of investor confidence. It also assesses the probabilities of a country switching between different regimes using the transition probability matrix. A maximum of three possible levels or regimes of risk – low, intermediate and high volatility regimes, is considered. From the smoothed probabilities calculated for different regimes, this paper makes inferences about timings of debt crisis. Comparing Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines and Indonesia in particular, we date the onset and subsequent dissolution of crisis-induced panic. We give interpretations of …


Forecasting The Car Penetration Rate (Cpr) In China: A Nonparametric Approach, Sainan Jin, Liangjun Su Sep 2007

Forecasting The Car Penetration Rate (Cpr) In China: A Nonparametric Approach, Sainan Jin, Liangjun Su

Research Collection School Of Economics

With strong economic growth, the auto industry has made great breakthroughs in recent years and has become a backbone industry in China, while cars play an increasingly important role, and are now the principal part of the auto industry. Both China's government and academic circles take strong interest in the prediction of CPR (i.e. car penetration rate or cars per thousand people), which will be the main guidance for the future industry policy. We summarize the existing problems in recent research and propose to use nonparametric methods to estimate the CPR and its elasticity with respect to GDP per capita …


Characterizing Exchange Rate Policy In East Asia: A Reconsideration, Hwee Kwan Chow, Yoonbai Kim, Wei Sun Jun 2007

Characterizing Exchange Rate Policy In East Asia: A Reconsideration, Hwee Kwan Chow, Yoonbai Kim, Wei Sun

Research Collection School Of Economics

Frankel and Wei (1994) developed and popularized a method for uncovering the implicit weights assigned to major international currencies constituting a currency basket. We extend the methodology in two dimensions: include regional competitive pressure and employ a vector autoregressive (VAR) model to overcome simultaneity bias. With these modifications, we confirm the prominent role of the US dollar in the exchange rate policy of East Asian economies beyond the short run. However, despite the high degree of commitment to nominal exchange rate stability prior to the crisis, fluctuations in most East Asian currencies are also significantly influenced by country specific shocks. …


Financial Liberalization And Monetary Policy Cooperation In East Asia, Hwee Kwan Chow, Peter N. Kriz, Roberto S. Mariano, Augustine H. H. Tan May 2007

Financial Liberalization And Monetary Policy Cooperation In East Asia, Hwee Kwan Chow, Peter N. Kriz, Roberto S. Mariano, Augustine H. H. Tan

Research Collection School Of Economics

As the countries in East Asia embark on financial liberalization, a key issue that confronts policymakers is the greater complexity of risks that is injected into the financial system. In particular, capital account liberalization may potentially increase the vulnerability of individual countries to external financial shocks. This paper advocates the optimally cascading of financial liberalization that is consistent across three dimensions: extent of domestic financial liberalization; the degree of exchange rate flexibility; and the scope of capital account liberalization. Unless the process of liberalization is properly managed, it could provoke destabilizing capital flows and lead to volatile exchange rates. Smooth …


Global And Regional Sources Of Risk In Equity Markets: Evidence From Factor Models With Time-Varying Conditional Skewness, Aamir R. Hashmi, Anthony S. Tay Apr 2007

Global And Regional Sources Of Risk In Equity Markets: Evidence From Factor Models With Time-Varying Conditional Skewness, Aamir R. Hashmi, Anthony S. Tay

Research Collection School Of Economics

We examine the influence of global and regional factors on the conditional distribution of stock returns from six Asian markets, using factor models in which unexpected returns comprise global, regional and local shocks. The models allow for conditional heteroskedasticity and time-varying conditional skewness, and are used to measure mean, variance, and skewness spillovers. We find that incorporating time-varying conditional skewness improves the fit of our spillover models, and can alter measurements of variance spillovers. However, time-varying conditional skewness is mostly a local phenomenon; with exceptions, there is little spillover in skewness from global and regional factors.


Asian Currency Baskets: A Useful Surveillance Tool?, Charles Adams, Hwee Kwan Chow Mar 2007

Asian Currency Baskets: A Useful Surveillance Tool?, Charles Adams, Hwee Kwan Chow

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper considers whether an intra-regional currency basket and the associated divergence indicators could play a useful role in official exchange rate surveillance. Recently, proponents of an Asian currency basket have referred to the role the European Currency Unit played in constructing exchange rate divergence indicators as evidence of the usefulness of intra-regional currency baskets for exchange rate monitoring. The paper shows that such indicators have a number of features that can lead to them obscuring underlying changes in exchange rates and that the signals they emit will often be difficult to interpret. In addition, the use of regional currency …


Business Output And Business Experience: Evidence From China's Nongovernmental Businesses, Liangjun Su Feb 2007

Business Output And Business Experience: Evidence From China's Nongovernmental Businesses, Liangjun Su

Research Collection School Of Economics

We study the application of the Solow growth model in China's non-governmental businesses and propose a reasonable modification for it. Our analysis indicates that business experience is closely tied to the output of China's non-governmental businesses. Our major findings include: (1) the business experience has little overall impact on the elasticity of output with respect to labour; (2) the business experience has a large impact on the elasticity of output with respect to capital and the elasticity increases as the business experience increases; (3) the adjusted Solow residual that reflects technological progress exhibits a negative relationship with the business experience, …


Open Vs Sealed Bid Auctions: Testing For Revenue Equivalence Under Singapore's Vehicle Quota System, Roberto S. Mariano, Winston T. H. Koh, Yiu Kuen Tse Jan 2007

Open Vs Sealed Bid Auctions: Testing For Revenue Equivalence Under Singapore's Vehicle Quota System, Roberto S. Mariano, Winston T. H. Koh, Yiu Kuen Tse

Research Collection School Of Economics

Using data from the auction of vehicle quota licenses in Singapore, we study if revenue equivalence holds when the auction format was switched from a sealed-bid format (May 1990 to June 2001) to an open bidding format since July 2001. Our econometric analysis indicates the change in auction format led to a change in bidding behavior. On average, the quota license premium under the open bidding format is about US$1000 (about 7.5% of the Category E license price in June 2001) lower, compared to the forecast level that would have prevailed if there had been no change in the auction …


The Singapore Model Of Housing And The Welfare State, Sock Yong Phang Jan 2007

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 …


To Use Or Not To Use?: Poverty Mapping In Cambodia, Tomoki Fujii Jan 2007

To Use Or Not To Use?: Poverty Mapping In Cambodia, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

No abstract provided.


Characterizing Exchange Rate Policy In East Asia: A Reconsideration, Hwee Kwan Chow Aug 2006

Characterizing Exchange Rate Policy In East Asia: A Reconsideration, Hwee Kwan Chow

Research Collection School Of Economics

Frankel and Wei [Frankel, J. A., & Wei, S.-J. (1994). Yen bloc or dollar bloc: Exchange rate policies of the East Asian economies. In I. Takatoshi & A. Krueger (Eds.), Macroeconomic linkages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press] developed and popularized a method for uncovering the implicit weights assigned to major international currencies constituting a currency basket. We extend the methodology in two dimensions: include regional competitive pressure and employ a vector autoregressive (VAR) model to overcome simultaneity bias. With these modifications, we confirm the prominent role of the US dollar in the exchange rate policy of East Asian economies beyond …


Exchange-Rate Systems And Interest-Rate Behaviour: The Experience Of Hong Kong And Singapore, Yiu Kuen Tse, Paul S. L. Yip Jul 2006

Exchange-Rate Systems And Interest-Rate Behaviour: The Experience Of Hong Kong And Singapore, Yiu Kuen Tse, Paul S. L. Yip

Research Collection School Of Economics

The Currency Board System in Hong Kong and the monitoring band system in Singapore are important benchmarks for two different exchange-rate systems. In this paper we consider the implications of the two exchange-rate systems on the interest-rate behaviour of the two economies. We examine the domestic–US interest differentials under the two exchange-rate regimes during the Asian Financial Crisis as well as the pre-and post-crisis periods. Using a bivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity model, we also investigate whether there is any change in the correlation between the domestic and US interest rates due to the Asian Financial Crisis.


Growth Accounting For A Follower-Economy In A World Of Ideas: The Example Of Singapore, Kong Weng Ho, Hian Teck Hoon Jun 2006

Growth Accounting For A Follower-Economy In A World Of Ideas: The Example Of Singapore, Kong Weng Ho, Hian Teck Hoon

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper, we take another approach to accounting for the sources of Singapore’s economic growth by being explicit about the channels through which Singapore, as a technological follower, benefits from international R&D spillovers. Taking into account the channels through which technology developed in the G5 countries diffuses to technological followers, we show that 57.5 percent of Singapore’s real GDP per worker growth rate over the 1970-2002 period is due to multifactor productivity growth. In particular, about 52 percent of the growth is accounted for by an increase in the effectiveness of accessing ideas developed by the technology leaders through …


Singapore's Transition To Innovation-Based Economic Growth: Infrastructure, Institutions And Government's Role, Winston T. H. Koh Mar 2006

Singapore's Transition To Innovation-Based Economic Growth: Infrastructure, Institutions And Government's Role, Winston T. H. Koh

Research Collection School Of Economics

Technological progress and innovation plays a central role in a country's economic progress. As an economy advances to the global technological frontier and narrows the technological gap, an innovation-based growth strategy that focuses on investments in R&D and technology creation offers the greatest potential for economic growth. In this paper, we discuss the requirements for a successful transition, in terms of changes to the technology infrastructure, economic institutions and the incentives' structure. This paper outlines the efforts made by Singapore to re-make itself as an innovation-based economy, and the challenges faced by the government in transforming the nation's infrastructure and …


The Rise In House Prices In China: Bubbles Or Fundamentals?, Jianying Hu, Liangjun Su, Sainan Jin, Wanjun Jiang Mar 2006

The Rise In House Prices In China: Bubbles Or Fundamentals?, Jianying Hu, Liangjun Su, Sainan Jin, Wanjun Jiang

Research Collection School Of Economics

The dramatic rise of house prices in many cities of China has brought huge attention from both the governmental and academic circles. There is a huge debate on whether the increasing house prices are driven by market fundamentals or just by speculation. Like Levin and Wright (1997a, 1997b), we decompose house prices in China into fundamental and non−fundamental components. We also consider potential nonlinear feedback from the historical growth rate of house prices on the current house prices and propose a semiparametric approach to estimate the speculative components in the model. We demonstrate that the non−fundamental part contributes a relatively …


How Well Can We Target Resources With Quick-And-Dirty Data?: Empirical Results From Cambodia, Tomoki Fujii Feb 2006

How Well Can We Target Resources With Quick-And-Dirty Data?: Empirical Results From Cambodia, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

Proverty reduction is a top priority for international organizations, governments and non-gorvernmental organizations. The aid resources available for poverty reduction are, however, severely constrained in many countries. Minimizing the leakage of aid resources to the non-poor is a key to maximize poverty reduction with the limited amount of resources available. One Way to minimize such leakage to to target resources geographically. That is, policmakers can move resources to the poorest parts of the country. Geographic taregting can quite effective when poverty is unevenly distributed across the country, and this proves to be the case in many countries.


Competition Policy In Indonesia, Malcolm Dowling Feb 2006

Competition Policy In Indonesia, Malcolm Dowling

Research Collection School Of Economics

The Indonesian economy was dominated by the government in the decades of the 1970s and 1980s through its control of major mining, manufacturing and agricultural activities. Hill (2000) estimates that as much as 40% of non-agricultural GDP was accounted for by government entities in the late 1980s There were still a lot of government corporations up until the late 1980s and early 1990s and governmental control over the banking system was still substantial.


Central Asia's Transition After Fifteen Years: Growth And Policy Choices, Malcolm Dowling, Ganeshan Vignaraja Feb 2006

Central Asia's Transition After Fifteen Years: Growth And Policy Choices, Malcolm Dowling, Ganeshan Vignaraja

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper presents a coherent and systematic analysis of the collapse and subsequent revival of the Central Asian Republics (CARs) since 1990. The focus is on the pattern of growth and structural change during the cycle of decline and subsequent revival in the CARs which have been inadequately analyzed in the literature on transition. The paper relates economic performance to initial conditions, country characteristics and policies. Within this framework, it proposes a simple typology of policies (including a new Type III set of policies on regional cooperation and industrial competitiveness) and relates them to the cycle of decline and revival …


Central Asia: Mapping Future Prospects, Malcolm Dowling, Ganeshan Wignaraja Feb 2006

Central Asia: Mapping Future Prospects, Malcolm Dowling, Ganeshan Wignaraja

Research Collection School Of Economics

Central Asia has emerged as one of the world’s fastest growing regions since the late 1990s and has shown notable development potential. This is significant for a region comprising largely of small landlocked economies with no access to the sea for trade. Among the advantages, of the region are its high- priced commodities (oil, gas, cotton and gold), reasonable infrastructure and human capital as legacies of Soviet rule; and a strategic location between Asia and Europe. Furthermore, many Central Asian Republics (CARs) have embarked on market-oriented economic reforms to boost economic performance and private sector competitiveness. Central Asia: Mapping Future …


An Empirical Examination Of Ipo Underpricing In The Chinese A-Share Market, Ting Yu, Yiu Kuen Tse Jan 2006

An Empirical Examination Of Ipo Underpricing In The Chinese A-Share Market, Ting Yu, Yiu Kuen Tse

Research Collection School Of Economics

Research in the literature shows that initial public offerings (IPOs) of common stocks are systematically priced at a discount to their subsequent initial trading price. The large underpricing magnitude in the Chinese IPO market has attracted much attention. We consider three hypotheses that may explain the IPO underpricing in China. These are the winner's curse hypothesis, the ex ante uncertainty hypothesis and the signaling hypothesis. Among these hypotheses, the winner's curse hypothesis has not been tested in the Chinese market. Using IPO data for online fixed-price offerings from November 1995 to December 1998, our results show that the winner's curse …


Commune-Level Estimation Of Poverty Measure And Its Application In Cambodia, Tomoki Fujii Jan 2006

Commune-Level Estimation Of Poverty Measure And Its Application In Cambodia, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

Cambodia is still suffering from the legacy of civil conflict after more than a decade. With over one-third of the population living below the poverty line, poverty remains one of the most serious problems in Cambodia. A number of governmental bodies, local and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and international organizations operating in Cambodia have made eradicating poverty a priority and have established many social programmes to this end. In designing such programmes, the efficient allocation of resources is essential for making poverty alleviation more cost-effective. Targeting is often helpful for this purpose because one can avoid wasting resources on the …


Does Governance Matter? Yes, No Or Maybe Some Evidence From Developing Asia, M. G. Quibria Jan 2006

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.


China's Changing Economic Structures And Its Implications For Regional Patterns Of Trade Production And Integration, Kim Song Tan, Hoe Ee Khor Nov 2005

China's Changing Economic Structures And Its Implications For Regional Patterns Of Trade Production And Integration, Kim Song Tan, Hoe Ee Khor

Research Collection School Of Economics

There is tremendous momentum for economic and financial integration in East Asia today. Partly inspired by the formation of the European Union and partly as a response to the 1997/98 Asia financial crisis, many East Asian countries are showing greater commitment to regional economic cooperation. A number of bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) have either been concluded or are being negotiated.1 At a less formal level, the ASEAN+3 grouping has brought the whole region together in regular consultations over trade, investment, as well as monetary and exchange rate policy matters.


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

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

Research Collection School Of Economics

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


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

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

Research Collection School Of Economics

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


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

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

Research Collection School Of Economics

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


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

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

Research Collection School Of Economics

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


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

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

Research Collection School Of Economics

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


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

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

Research Collection School Of Economics

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