Asian Studies Commons^™

Fertility And Rural Electrification In Bangladesh, Tomoki Fujii, Abu S. Shonchoy

Research Collection School Of Economics

We use contemporaneous and retrospective panel datasets to examine the household-level relationship between fertility and access to electricity in Bangladesh. We find that access to electricity reduces fertility by about 0.2 children over a period of five years or total fertility rate by about 1.2 in most estimates. This finding is robust with respect to the choice of the estimation method, the choice of sample, and potential presence of endogeneity. The finding also corroborates the theoretical predictions on time use and consumption pattern derived from our model of electrification and fertility. The results also suggest that television is an important …

Asian Ip Law: An Area Of Rising Importance, Kung-Chung Liu, Shufeng Zheng

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Intellectual property (IP) laws are an important instrument for promoting cooperation and peace in Asia. In their own ways, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, China and India all serve as IP success stories. Structural features of the IP landscape in major Asian jurisdictions include the following: technocrat-driven IP law, national IP strategies and specialized IP or patent judges. In addition, there are five distinctively Asian developments worth noticing: the sweeping criminalization of copyright infringement, an explosion in the number of registered trademarks, the very limited use of compulsory patent licensing and the convergence on certain standards for the licensing …

The Doctrine Of Wilful Blindness In Drug Offences: Adili Chibuike Ejike V Public Prosecutor [2019] 2 Slr 254, Rennie Whang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In Adili Chibuike Ejike v Public Prosecutor [2019] 2 SLR 254, the Court of Appeal clarified the operation of the wilful blindness doctrine in the context of knowing possession for drug offences. In particular, it affirmed wilful blindness as a doctrine of substantive rather than evidential law, which applies as a limited extension to the legal requirement of actual knowledge. The court then articulated a three-part test for the finding of wilful blindness in relation to knowledge as an ingredient of possession. However, it left open the content of the doctrine as applied to the element of knowledge in drug …

Translation Of: Interview With Jacques Derrida: The Western Question Of "Forgiveness" And The Intercultural Relation, Ning Zhang, Steven Burik

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

These two interviews with Jacques Derrida were conducted by Ning Zhang in 1999 and 2000, respectively, in preparation for the publication of his book Writing and Difference in Chinese and his first academic trip to China in 2001. In the first interview, Jacques Derrida tries to clarify the ethical concerns with regard to his deconstructive analysis of Western traditions, through his critical reading of the concept of forgiveness. In this interview he gives us a clearer insight into his ideas about the problem of intercultural exchange, especially concerning questions of translation, translatability, and untranslatability, as central issues of his work. …

Examining The Cross-Cultural Validity Of The Positive Affect And Negative Affect Schedule Between An Asian (Singaporean) Sample And A Western (American) Sample, Sean Teck Hao Lee, Andree Hartanto, Jose C. Yong, Brandon Koh, Angela K. Y. Leung

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The positive affect and negative affect schedule (PANAS) is a popular measure of positive (PA) and negative affectivity (NA). Developed and validated in Western contexts, the 20-item scale has been frequently administered on respondents from Asian countries with the assumption of cross-cultural measurement invariance. We examine this assumption via a rigorous multigroup confirmatory factor analysis, which allows us to assess between-group differences in both strength of scale item-to-latent factor relationship (metric invariance test) and mean of each scale item (scalar invariance test), on a large sample of 1,065 respondents recruited from Singapore (Asian sample) and the United States (Western sample). …

Berita Winter 2019/2020, Dominik M. Müller

Berita

Table of Contents

Letter from the Chair ... 2

MSB Group Events at the AAS Conference 2020, Boston, MA (March 19-22) ... 3–4

Article: ‘A Fresh Look at Fish Through a Brief History of Fish Head Curry’ (Geoffrey K. Pakiam) ... 5–10

Article: ‘‘My Second Home’: An Interview with Rose Chew,Ticketing Officer of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, 1990–2016’ ... 11–13

MSB Member News ... 14

Publications ... 14–16

Job Opportunities ... 16

Call for Applications: M.A. and PhD Programs ... 17–18

Call for Papers ... 18

Editorial Information ... 18

A Multimodal Analysis Using An Exemplar From Japanese Television Advertising, Noel Murray

Business Faculty Articles and Research

A multimodal analysis is used to investigate for the presence of situated meanings of uchi/soto in Japanese advertising. The analysis supports the proposition that discourses of gendered relations of uchi/soto may be found in contemporary Japanese television advertising. The article argues that relations of uchi/soto provide a unique window into Japanese consumption behavior. I advocate for multimodal critical discourse analysis as a preferred methodology and theoretical framework for multimodal advertising research applications. I discuss social and economic implications of reproducing gendered relations of uchi/soto in advertising and offer suggestions for future research on situated meanings.

Singapore’S National Ai Strategy, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

The island state is banking on industry-wide projects and building an AI ecosystem to transform its economy

The Rising Importance Of Chinese Monetary Policy, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Expert expects the influence of Chinese monetary policy to rise as the country’s share of the global economy increases

The Value Of Transgender Women In The Philippine Call Centre Industry, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

While call centres provide an otherwise unavailable path to corporate work for trans individuals, they also extract value while conferring social status

Brain Drain: The Impact Of Air Pollution On Firm Performance, Shuyu Xue, Bohui Zhang, Xiaofeng Zhao

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

By exploiting the exogenous variation in air pollution caused by China’s central heating policy, we find that air pollution reduces the accumulation of executive talent and high-quality employees. We also find that firms located in polluted areas have poorer performance, especially for firms with greater dependence on human capital.

Whose War Is It Anyway? How Afghanistan Became A Battlefield Over Global Hegemony During The Cold War, Kathryn Shapiro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Traditional scholarship depicts the Cold War, which began immediately after World War Two and ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, as a battle of freedom and democracy over communism and authoritarian control. Cold War propaganda cartoons often show an Uncle Sam figure facing off against the Soviet Union, or a Soviet Bear reaching out to grab and control Western Europe. While this may have been popular Cold War discourse, a close look at internal documents from the United States Government at the time reveals that the United States was more interested in protecting resources and their …

Strategic Intent Of Obor: Enhancing Energy Supply Resilience, Loon Ching Tang, Joyce M. W. Low

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Since the launch of the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative in 2015, China has announced its intention to invest in major infrastructure projects to promote trade and co-operation with its trading partners along OBOR. This paper examines the current level of trading and key projects underway along OBOR so as to provide insights to understand its strategic intent. In particular, a network model is constructed to analyze the impact to China current and future demand for energy under various conditions especially during prolonged periods of supply uncertainties. Since these key projects are closely connected to the current and proven …

Amid The Covid-19 Outbreak, What Can Singapore Expect In Budget 2020, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Covid-19 outbreak has placed significant and urgent demands on Budget 2020 that will be unveiled on Tuesday (Feb 18). The Government has given a strong affirmation that the Budget will be equal to the task and that it will reinforce the “never fear” spirit that Singapore and Singaporeans will need to adopt to come out stronger of this challenging period.

On Mandatory Criminal Sentences, Legislative Interpretation, And The Prospective Application Of The Law: A View From Singapore, Kwan Ho Lau

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Cana court find that a criminal sentence is mandatory under the penal legislation butchoose, exceptionally, to apply that finding only to future cases? This raisesan interesting question on the prospective application of a correctconstruction of legislation, requiring consideration of difficult issuessurrounding not just the temporal application of the law but also theprotection of the interests belonging to all citizenry, including convictedpersons. Recent decisions in Singapore and elsewhere provide an opening for amore detailed inquiry to be undertaken.

Superstition, Conspicuous Spending, And Housing Market: Evidence From Singapore, Jia He, Haoming Liu, Tien Foo Sing, Changcheng Song, Wei-Kang Wong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We study the effect of superstition and conspicuous spending motives on housing demand and price in Singapore. We find that buyers pay less for homes with unlucky addresses and more for homes with lucky addresses. There were fewer housing transactions on inauspicious days of the lunar calendar when people are advised to avoid making major economic decisions. This suggests that superstitious belief still affects economic activities. The demand for lucky addresses is also weaker on these inauspicious days, suggesting that superstitious belief indeed affects the demand for lucky addresses. Moreover, the price premium for a lucky address is significantly higher …

Financial Illiteracy And Pension Contributions: A Field Experiment On Compound Interest In China, Changcheng Song

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

I conduct a field experiment to study the relationship between peoples’ misunderstanding of compound interest and their pension contributions in rural China. I find that explaining the concept of compound interest to subjects increased pension contributions by roughly 40%. The treatment effect is larger for those who underestimate compound interest than for those who overestimate compound interest. Moreover, financial education enables households to partially correct their misunderstanding of compound interest. I structurally estimate the level of misunderstanding of compound interest and conduct a counterfactual welfare analysis: lifetime utility increases by about 10% if subjects’ misunderstanding of compound interest is eliminated.

How Inheritance Law Affects Family Firm Performance: Evidence From A Natural Experiment, Yong Kyu Gam, Min Jung Kang, Junho Park, Hojong Shin

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We argue that changes in the inheritance system affect incentives leading to sibling rivalry among descendants and therefore have a material impact on family firm performance. Using South Korea's 1991 inheritance law reform that stipulates the equal distribution of a deceased person's property to descendants, we find that the performance and operating growth rate in family firms show significant enhancement compared with those of nonfamily firms. Moreover, the positive effects are greater for family firms that undergo a business succession with multiple sons and married daughters. Overall, our results suggest that changing to equal bequests of inheritance has a positive …

Apply Liberally: Towards A Model Of Liberal Management Education, Howard Thomas

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Howard Thomas argues the case for integrating the liberal arts into management education so that the existing curricula emphasis on technological and analytical acumen is balanced with skills of critical thinking and ethical intelligence necessary for managerial judgment.

Subverting The Logics Of "Smartness" In Singapore: Smart Eldercare And Parallel Regimes Of Sustainability, Orlando Woods

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper argues that the divergent logics of “smartness” and “sustainability” can lead to parallel regimes of sustainability. Whilst sustainability is often used to justify the need for smart cities, smart cities are often undermined by the neoliberal logics of digital governance. Moreover, because the intersection of digital technologies and society is a negotiated one, smart solutions often fail to provide adequate solutions to social problems. This is especially true when smart solutions are used to augment or replace hitherto human-centred processes, like caregiving.Parallel regimes of sustainability are a response to these failures. Drawing onan analysis of a trial of …

Authoritarian Innovations And Democratic Reform In The “New Malaysia”, Sebastian Carl Dettman

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Malaysia’s National Front coalition, one of the world’s most durable authoritarian governments, lost power in national elections held in 2018. Although incumbent turnover represents a significant step toward democratization, the reform of institutions and practices associated with political domination by the country’s Malay Muslim majority has been slowed in the face of challenges from a new configuration of opposition forces. The new opposition, which includes UMNO, the former dominant party of the National Front, has framed democratic reforms initiated by the new government – and the more multiethnic ruling government itself – as a threat to the rights of the …

Using Open Source Data To Identify Transit Deserts In Four Major Chinese Cities, Junfeng Jiao, Mingming Cai

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

The concept of transit deserts stems from the concept of food deserts. There is substantial research on transit deserts in developed countries. However, there is no known research that has studied this subject in Chinese cities. Using open-source data, this paper identified transit desert areas in four major Chinese cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Chengdu). The results show that: (1) In these four cities, the transit desert areas are mainly concentrated in city centers and hardly occur in any suburban areas, which is very different from the cases in the US. (2) Shanghai has the largest transit-dependent population living in transit …

Singapore Case Note: Settlement Agreement Invoked As Shield, Nadja Alexander, Shou Yu Chong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Singapore Convention on Mediation makes clear that international mediated settlement agreements (iMSAs) may be used as a sword or invoked as a shield in judicial or arbitral proceedings (defence). In the post-Singapore Convention world, lawyers are looking closely at the extent to which courts may recognise settlement agreements, especially mediated settlement agreements, as a shield or a defence to arbitral or litigation proceedings.

Singapore Convention Series: Bill To Ratify Before Singapore Parliament, Nadja Alexander, Shou Yu Chong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Signing on to the Singapore Convention is only the beginning. The Convention will come into force six months after three States have ratified it into their domestic law (Article 14 of the Convention). A Bill currently before the Singapore Parliament seeks to pave the way for that – ratify the Convention in Singapore through the enactment of legislation to implement its terms. It is anticipated that the Singapore Convention on Mediation Bill (the ‘Bill’) will be passed into Law before the end of March 2020. It may very well be the first piece of legislation that ratifies the Convention. Other …

What Is The Value Of Built Heritage? Assessing Spillover Effects Of Conserving Historic Sites In Singapore, Shin Bin Tan, Edward S. W. Ti

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Quantifying the economic benefits of built heritage facilitates the formulation and assessment of conservation policies and programs. There is however a lack of empirical research about the economic value of built heritage in Asian cities. This lack is problematic, given the rapid pace of demolition and redevelopment of historic landscapes in Asian cities. This study seeks to reduce the current gap in built heritage research by examining whether real estate premiums are generated by the designation of buildings as ‘conserved’ in Singapore, a city-state in South East Asia. Using 20 years of housing transaction data, and controlling for building, neighborhood …

Disasters And The Making Of Asian History, Chris Courtney, Fiona Williamson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Environmental historians have often been drawn to disasters. They have unearthed the often-forgotten stories of erupting volcanoes, raging rivers and rainless skies, and in so doing have reminded their colleagues from more anthropocentric disciplines that the societies, economies and cultures they study are part of broader physical systems. In addition to highlighting the agency of nature, however, disasters have also helped to remind us that environmental history remains at heart a humanistic discipline. It should never be simply a lament for lost natural habitats, but also a discipline which offers a unique prism through which to study people. It is …

The 5cs Of Beating The Coronavirus Outbreak, David Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Practise being calm, cautious, considerate, caring and collectivistic. And use these tools to build up arsenal of psychological defence against the virus threat.

Factors Supporting Turkey’S Policy To Purchase Russian S-400 Anti-Air Strike Defense Units, Chendika Yonanda, Maryam Jamila, Zulkifli Harza, Ilman Syarif Masri

Journal of Strategic and Global Studies

Turkey is a member of the NATO military alliance since 1952, as a member of NATO, cooperation between Turkey and Russia invites counterparts from other NATO alliance countries. But even with criticism, Turkey continues purchasing S-400 from Russia . Therefore, this study aims to analyze the factors that support Turkey's policy on purchasing S-400.This research is a descriptive research through internet-based literature.Turkey's policy in purchasing S-400 analyzed using the concepts of Arms, Alliances and Security Tradeoffs proposed by James D. Morrow. James stated that there are three factors that influence the state to conduct arming; economic & military technological factors, …

Crania Japonica: Ethnographic Portraiture, Scientific Discourse, And The Fashioning Of Ainu/Japanese Colonial Identities, Jeffrey Braytenbah

Dissertations and Theses

Japan's colonial activities on the island of Hokkaido were instrumental to the creation of modern Japanese national identity. Within this construction, the indigenous Ainu people came to be seen in dialectical opposition to the 'modern' and 'civilized' identity that Japanese colonial actors fashioned for themselves. This process was articulated through travel literature, ethnographic portraiture, and discourse in scientific racism which racialized perceived divisions between the Ainu and Japanese and contributed to the unmaking of the Ainu homeland: Ainu Mosir. The resulting narrative was used to legitimize Japanese imperialism, transforming the Empire of Japan into the only non-Western member state …

The Audit Cost Of Being On China’S Hurun Rich List, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Research finds auditors tend to charge higher fees or use stronger language in audit opinions against clients listed on China’s rich list