Asian Studies Commons^™

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.

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

Future Job Prospects In Singapore, Hian Teck Hoon

Research Collection School Of Economics

No abstract provided.

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Indonesian Economic Development: Miracle Or Mirage?, John Malcolm Dowling, Chin Fang Yap

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper focuses on a few major developments that took place during the three decades from the late 1960s to the Asian financial crisis. The study finds, in retrospect, that many of the Indonesian economy's weaknesses--now so glaringly apparent--were there all the time. The paper concludes that the Indonesian banking crisis was primarily domestic in nature, more so than the crises in Korea and Thailand. The extent of the failure was much more widespread and probably resulted from a chain of bank runs and bank closings, reinforced by uncertainty and lack of faith in the government's commitment to the IMF …

From Efficiency-Driven To Innovation-Driven Economic Growth: Perspectives From Singapore, Kim Song Tan, Sock-Yong Phang

Research Collection School Of Economics

The Singapore economy is going through a period of major restructuring. Economic stagnation since the 1997 Asia financial crisis (except for a brief recovery in 1999) has called into question the continued relevance of many fundamental policies that had worked well in the past. In 2002, a high-level Economic Review Committee (ERC) was convened by the government to chart new directions for the economy. A common thread that ran through the committee’s various reports was a call to enhance the economy’s innovative capacity, with the aim of making Singapore an innovation hub in the region. The call reflects an increased …

What Has Luck Got To Do With Economic Development? An Interpretation Of Resurgent Asia's Growth Experience, Hing-Man Leung, Swee Liang Tan, Zhenlin Yang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper critically reexamines the belief, currently gathering strength in the literature, that economic development depends on good luck rather than on good policy, and that Prometheus is unchained by chance. While it is impossible to disprove the role of luck in growth, we argue that luck is endogenous, and good luck is a function of good policy. Luck favours those who strive. Again contrary to common belief, we show that resurgent Asian economies have endured more, not less, than their fair share of economic volatility. They learned their lessons by success and failures, and luck is endogenous through learning-by-investing.

The Empirical Relationship Between Exchange Rates And Interest Rates In Post-Crisis Asia, Hwee Kwan Chow, Yoonbai Kim

Research Collection School Of Economics

In post-crisis Asia, all crisis-hit countries (except Malaysia) announced a shift from exchange rate based monetary policy framework to the explicit adoption of inflation targeting that uses interest rates as the key monetary policy operating instrument. In this study, we examine the empirical relationship between exchange rates and interest rates, and investigate how the dynamics between them have changed following the crisis. This is carried out by constructing a bivariate VAR-GARCH model for each of the four Asian crisis countries, namely Indonesia, Korea, Philippines and Thailand. The findings suggest these countries do not use interest rate policy more actively to …

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 …

Road Congestion Pricing In Singapore: 1975-2003, Sock-Yong Phang, Rex S. Toh

Research Collection School Of Economics

Facing traffic congestion in the Central Business District and enormous demands on scarce land resources by the growing number of motor vehicles, Singapore, a small island city-state the size of Seattle, embarked on a bold decision to reduce road congestion by implementing the famous Area Licensing Scheme in 1975. This was a manual system of tolls for multiple entries into the Restricted Zone. While achieving the intended effect of cutting down on the volume of vehicular traffic in the Restricted Zone, the authors (and others) found that the problem of congestion had merely shifted in time and place. Many changes …

Why Is China So Competitive? Measuring And Explaining China's Competitiveness, F. Gerard Adams, Byron Gangnes, Yochanan Shachmurove

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper evaluates factors responsible for the competitiveness of China in the world economy and relative to its East Asian rivals. China has been highly successful in capturing world export markets. Chinese competitiveness is not just a matter of an undervalued exchange and extremely low labor costs. It reflects primarily the coincidence of favorable cost conditions with improvements in China’s ability to produce products that meet world market specifications. These improvements are closely related to foreign participation in China’s economy through foreign direct investment and joint venture enterprises.

Congestion Control And Vehicle Ownership Restriction: The Choice Of An Optimal Quota Policy, Winston T. H. Koh

Research Collection School Of Economics

Singapore introduced a vehicle quota system (VQS) in 1990 as part of its overall policy to control urban congestion. While the VQS has reduced the annual growth rate of the vehicle population to about 3 per cent, it has created uncertainty in the cost of vehicle ownership due to the fluctuations in licence prices. This paper discusses three issues relating to the optimal design of a VQS: licence transferability, sub-categorisation, and the choice of an auction format. The analysis shows that licence transferability is not unambiguously desirable, sub-categorisation is highly regressive, and an open auction format results in less aggressive …

The Impacts Of Hong Kong's Currency Board Reforms On Its Interbank Market, Yiu Kuen Tse, Paul S. L. Yip

Research Collection School Of Economics

Among the economies with a Currency Board System (CBS), Hong Kong (HK) is probably the one with the largest and most developed financial sector, as well as the highest capital mobility. Hence, studying HK’s CBS is not only crucial to HK, but also important for the understanding of the modern CBS. This paper outlines the major monetary reforms in HK since the late 1980s. The impacts of these reforms and the 1997–1998 Asian Financial Crisis are then examined empirically. We focus on the differentials between the US and HK interbank interest rates. We assume the conditional-mean equation follows an autoregressive …

Micro-Level Estimation Of The Prevalence Of Stunting And Underweight Among Children In Cambodia, Tomoki Fujii, Livia Montana

Research Collection School Of Economics

We are pleased to share this copy of the preliminary report on "Micro-Level Estimation of the Prevalence of Stunting and Underweight Among Children in Cambodia." This study is the result of a collaboration between the Ministry of Planning, the United Nations World Food Programme and the MEASURE DHS+ project, with in-kind assistance from The World Bank. We also would like to express our acknowledgement to Italian Cooperation and International Fund for Agricultural Development for supporting in publication and distribution.

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 …

The Role Of United Charities In Fundraising: The Case Of Singapore, Vincent Chua, Chung Ming Wong

Research Collection School Of Economics

Theory suggests that a united charity helps to economize on fundraising costs by reducing competition for donations among member charities. However, donors often cannot control the allocation of their donations, and charities may dislike the monitoring of their activities. This paper examines these and other issues relating to the Community Chest of Singapore. The results, based on analysis of financial positions and fundraising costs of a large number of charities, suggest that the Community Chest does possess important fundraising advantages. Thus charities in financial difficulties or in need of funds for additional programs tend to seek membership. However, organizations that …

Open Versus Sealed-Bid Auctions: Testing For Revenue Equivalence Under Singapore's Vehicle Quota System, Winston T. H. Koh, Roberto S. Mariano, 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$1,000 (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 …

What Has Luck Got To Do With Economic Development? An Interpretation Of Resurgent Asia's Growth Experience, Hing-Man Leung, Swee Liang Tan, Zhenlin Yang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper critically reexamines the belief, currently gathering strength in the literature, that economic development depends on good luck rather than on good policy, and that Prometheus is “unchained by chance”. While it is impossible to disprove the role of luck in growth, we argue that luck is endogenous, and good luck is a function of good policy. Luck favours those who strive. Again contrary to common belief, we show that resurgent Asian economies have endured more, not less, than their fair share of economic volatility. They learned their lessons by success and failures, and luck is endogenous through learning-by-investing.

Markov Switching Garch Models Of Currency Crises In Southeast Asia, Celso Brunetti, Roberto S. Mariano, Chiara Scotti, Augustine H. H. Tan

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper develops a model which is able to forecast exchange rate turmoil. Our starting point relies on the empirical evidence that exchange rate volatility is not constant. In fact, the modeling strategy adopted refers to the vast literature of the GARCH class of models, where the variance process is explicitly modeled. Further empirical evidence shows that it is possible to distinguish between two different regimes: îordinaryî versus îturbulenceî. Low exchange rate changes are associated with low volatility (ordinary regime) and high exchange rate devaluations go together with high volatility. This calls for a regime switching approach. In our model …

Service Links And Wage Inequality, Kong Weng Ho, Hian Teck Hoon

Research Collection School Of Economics

In our general equilibrium model, the variety of specialized service links affects international production fragmentation in manufacturing. Decreases in cost of education or fixed cost of service links raise the relative supply of skilled workers, increase service specialization, and decrease the price of aggregate services. Consequently, the market for service- and skill-intensive component manufacturing enlarges, raising relative demand for skilled workers. Empirically, endogenous change in international outsourcing rather than skill-biased technological progress is the main reason for a modest decline in wage gap despite the rapid rise in relative supply of skilled workers in Singapore from 1978 to 2000.

Strategic Development Of Airport And Rail Infrastructure: The Case Of Singapore, Sock-Yong Phang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This article recounts how a number of strategic infrastructure investment decisions in airport and rail development taken by the Singapore government were at variance with recommendations emerging from cost-benefit analysis, but were considered necessary to support external competitiveness. This link between infrastructure provision and economic development may require decision makers to assess the trade-off between prudent macro-economic planning and efficient micro-economic management for major projects. In the case of airport hubs, the most difficult assessment might be the game consideration of how much, and how far ahead, excess capacity is needed to ensure the dominance of the hub.

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

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper investigates the effects of the migration of the Hang Seng Index futures from open-outcry trading to electronic trading. Using trade data over a window of six months we find evidence that, after the migration, the bid-ask spread of the futures contract decreases and the contribution of the futures price in information transmission increases. Furthermore, the asymmetry in volatility spillover reduces and the open interests of the futures market become smaller. These results suggest that the anonymity in trading and the higher speed of order execution in the electronic trading system attract informed traders to the futures market and …

Venture Capital And Economic Growth: An Industry Overview And Singapore's Experience, Francis Koh, Winston T. H. Koh

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper provides an overview of the venture capital industry, and its development in Asia and Singapore. Venture capital plays an important role in innovation and economic growth. Indeed, the resurgence of the United States as a technology leader is intimately linked to the success of Silicon Valley. As Singapore enters the next phase of economic development, the creation of internal engines of growth is an urgent task. The Singapore government has done much to provide an environment for entrepreneurship to thrive. Its success at replicating the Silicon Valley culture will be important for Singapore’s future economic success.

The Impact Of Housing Prices On Aggregate Consumption: Evidence From An East Asian City-State, Sock-Yong Phang

Research Collection School Of Economics

Using aggregate consumption data for Singapore, this paper rejects the life-cycle/permanent income and myopia hypotheses as explanations for aggregate consumption behavior. We confirm the presence of liquidity constraints from the asymmetric reaction of consumption to income increases vis-a-vis income declines. When we allow for asymmetric response, anticipated house price increases appear to have a dampening effect on aggregate consumption while declines in expected house price growth also had a negative effect on consumption, although the results are statistically insignificant. There is no evidence that the housing price increases have produced either wealth or collateral enhancement effects on consumption.

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

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper we consider the implications of the two different exchange-rate systems in Hong Kong (HK) and Singapore (SP) on the economic performance of these two economies. While HK has a pegged exchange-rate regime under a currency board system (CBS), SP has a managed-float system with monitoring band. We examine whether the managed-float system of SP provides an advantage over the rigid CBS of HK in mitigating the recession caused by the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC), and the implications of the differences in the exchange-rate systems on interest-rate behaviour. Our empirical results show that the monitoring band system in …

Strategic Development Of Airport And Rail Infrastructure: The Case Of Singapore, Sock-Yong Phang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This article recounts how a number of strategic infrastructure investment decisions in airport and rail development taken by the Singapore government were at variance with recommendations emerging from Cost-Benefit Analysis, but were considered necessary to support external competitiveness. This link between infrastructure provision and economic development may require decision makers to assess the trade-off between prudent macro-economic planning and efficient micro-economic management for major projects. In the case of airport hubs, the most difficult assessment might be the game consideration of how much, and how far ahead, excess capacity is needed to ensure the dominance of the hub.