Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Singapore Management University

Discipline
Keyword
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type
File Type

Articles 1381 - 1410 of 8025

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

A Multi-Country Test Of Brief Reappraisal Interventions On Emotions During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Ka Wang, Amit Goldenberg, Charles Dorison, Et Al., Nadyanna Mohamed Majeed, Andree Hartanto Aug 2021

A Multi-Country Test Of Brief Reappraisal Interventions On Emotions During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Ka Wang, Amit Goldenberg, Charles Dorison, Et Al., Nadyanna Mohamed Majeed, Andree Hartanto

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes might have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we tested the effectiveness of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that modifies how one thinks about a situation. Participants from 87 countries and regions (n = 21,644) were randomly assigned to one of two brief reappraisal interventions (reconstrual or repurposing) or one of two control conditions (active or passive). Results revealed that both reappraisal interventions (vesus both control conditions) consistently reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions across …


When A Pandemic Disrupts The Export Of People, Yasmin Y. Ortiga, Karen Anne S. Liao Aug 2021

When A Pandemic Disrupts The Export Of People, Yasmin Y. Ortiga, Karen Anne S. Liao

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Yasmin Ortiga and Karen Anne S. Liao conducted research supported by the SSRC on the dramatic disruptions that Filipino labor migrants experienced as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the support (or lack thereof) of their plight by the Filipino state. Arguing that labor as well as commodity supply chains have been thrown in upheaval, the authors describe the limits of the Philippines’ labor export strategy. In particular, they focus on two sets of labor migrants—nurses unable to take jobs abroad, and repatriated cruise ship workers—for whom dignified work at home was unavailable. Ortiga and Liao conclude that treating …


Tackling The Critical Question Of Schooling’S Ns Deferment After His Poor Tokyo Olympics Performance, Tan K. B. Eugene Aug 2021

Tackling The Critical Question Of Schooling’S Ns Deferment After His Poor Tokyo Olympics Performance, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In a commentary, SMU Associate Professor of Law Eugene Tan, who was team manager of Singapore’s 2004 Athens Olympics national swim team, discussed the critical question of Singapore’s sporting icon Joseph Schooling’s National Service (NS) deferment after his subpar performance at the Tokyo Olympics. Joseph has been on long-term NS deferment since 2014. Assoc Prof Tan noted that what is at stake is the integrity of long-term deferment, and the precedent-setting decision calculus which would come under intense scrutiny.


Wild Bootstrap For Instrumental Variable Regressions With Weak And Few Clusters, Wenjie Wang, Yichong Zhang Aug 2021

Wild Bootstrap For Instrumental Variable Regressions With Weak And Few Clusters, Wenjie Wang, Yichong Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

We study the wild bootstrap inference for instrumental variable (quantile) regressions in the framework of a small number of large clusters, in which the number of clusters is viewed as fixed and the number of observations for each cluster diverges to infinity. For subvector inference, we show that the wild bootstrap Wald test with or without using the cluster-robust covariance matrix controls size asymptotically up to a small error as long as the parameters of endogenous variables are strongly identified in at least one of the clusters. We further develop a wild bootstrap Anderson-Rubin (AR) test for full-vector inference and …


Jobs For Justice(S): Corruption In The Supreme Court Of India, Madhav S. Aney, Shubhankar Dam, Giovanni Ko Aug 2021

Jobs For Justice(S): Corruption In The Supreme Court Of India, Madhav S. Aney, Shubhankar Dam, Giovanni Ko

Research Collection School Of Economics

We investigate whether judicial decisions are affected by career concerns of judges by analyzing two questions: Do judges respond to incentives to pander by ruling in favor of the government in the hope of receiving jobs after retiring from the Supreme Court? Does the government reward judges who rule in its favor with prestigious jobs? We construct a data set of Supreme Court of India cases involving the government for 1999–2014. We find that incentives to pander have a causal effect on judicial decision-making, and they are jointly determined by the importance of the case and whether the judge retires …


Financing Singapore’S Smes And The Crowdfunding Industry In Singapore, Swee Liang Tan, Yoke Wang Tok, Chansriniyom Thitipat Aug 2021

Financing Singapore’S Smes And The Crowdfunding Industry In Singapore, Swee Liang Tan, Yoke Wang Tok, Chansriniyom Thitipat

Research Collection School Of Economics

As new digital technologies emerge that make the provision of financial services more efficient, they hold the potential to address barriers that SMEs face in accessing credit. This paper finds empirical evidence that crowdfunding for SMEs improved SMEs’ timeliness to pay debt in Singapore. Anecdotal evidence from growing SMEs suggests that getting crowdfunding loans also induced financing from banks, leading to more efficient allocation of credit. In just four years, Singapore’s crowdfunding volume has grown rapidly making it one of the top crowdfunding hubs in Southeast Asia in 2018. The rapid development of Singapore’s crowdfunding industry can be attributed to …


Glivenko-Cantelli Theorems For Integrated Functionals Of Stochastic Processes, Jia Li, Congshan Zhang, Yunxiao Liu Aug 2021

Glivenko-Cantelli Theorems For Integrated Functionals Of Stochastic Processes, Jia Li, Congshan Zhang, Yunxiao Liu

Research Collection School Of Economics

We prove a Glivenko-Cantelli theorem for integrated functionals of latent continuous-time stochastic processes. Based on a bracketing condition via random brackets, the theorem establishes the uniform convergence of a sequence of empirical occupation measures towards the occupation measure induced by underlying processes over large classes of test functions, including indicator functions, bounded monotone functions, Lipschitz-in-parameter functions, and Hölder classes as special cases. The general Glivenko-Cantelli theorem is then applied in more concrete high-frequency statistical settings to establish uniform convergence results for general integrated functionals of the volatility of efficient price and local moments of microstructure noise.


Volatility Coupling, Jean Jacod, Jia Li, Zhipeng Liao Aug 2021

Volatility Coupling, Jean Jacod, Jia Li, Zhipeng Liao

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper provides a strong approximation, or coupling, theory for spot volatility estimators formed using high-frequency data. We show that the t-statistic process associated with the nonparametric spot volatility estimator can be strongly approximated by a growing-dimensional vector of independent variables defined as functions of Brownian increments. We use this coupling theory to study the uniform inference for the volatility process in an infill asymptotic setting. Specifically, we propose uniform confidence bands for spot volatility, beta, idiosyncratic variance processes, and their nonlinear transforms. The theory is also applied to address an open question concerning the inference of monotone nonsmooth integrated …


The Impact Of Temperature On Labor Quality: Umpire Accuracy In Major League Baseball, Eric Fesselmeyer Jul 2021

The Impact Of Temperature On Labor Quality: Umpire Accuracy In Major League Baseball, Eric Fesselmeyer

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Using data from Major League Baseball, I compute an objective measure of the home plate umpire's work quality-the accuracy of his ball and strike calls during a game-and measure how it varies with temperature. I find that an increase in game-time temperature from between 70 and 80 degrees F to above 95 degrees F decreases an umpire's accuracy by a little less than a percentage point, which is a 5.5% increase in the pitch-calling error rate when evaluated at the mean error rate of 13.3%. Restricting the sample to borderline pitches increases the magnitude of the hot-weather effect on accuracy …


The Unique Role Of The State Press In The Chinese Economy, Singapore Management University Jul 2021

The Unique Role Of The State Press In The Chinese Economy, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

CUHK research investigates the role played by China’s state-owned media in supplying information vital to the functioning of China’s capital markets


We Are Partners! Connecting Through Collaboration And Engagement With Communities At Smu Libraries, Wei Xia Jul 2021

We Are Partners! Connecting Through Collaboration And Engagement With Communities At Smu Libraries, Wei Xia

Research Collection Library

No abstract provided.


Squawking About Persistently Higher Inflation?, Thomas Lam Jul 2021

Squawking About Persistently Higher Inflation?, Thomas Lam

Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics

All signs point to an uncertain path for inflation in the future. While inflation is set to stay prospectively higher in the US in the near-term, it's unlikely to remain so.


A Design Thinking Odyssey: Measuring And Documenting Graduate Learning Outcomes In The Co-Curricular Space, Alvin Sim, Paulin Tay Straughan Jul 2021

A Design Thinking Odyssey: Measuring And Documenting Graduate Learning Outcomes In The Co-Curricular Space, Alvin Sim, Paulin Tay Straughan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Co-curricular experiences should be warranted a fair amount of attention in higher education, particularly for their ability to help students develop real-world employability skills and a platform for them to critically reflect upon and expand their perspectives. These are crucial in developing the future-ready graduate – the type of graduate the Singapore Management University (SMU) strives to nurture. Yet, the authors have discovered that many students go from one activity to another without understanding what they can actually be getting out of these activities and how each activity connects to life after university. This has led the authors to seek …


Students’ Evaluation Of Teaching In The Project-Based Learning Programme: An Instrument And A Development Process, Gary Pan, Venky Shankararaman, Kevin Koh, Sandy Gan Jul 2021

Students’ Evaluation Of Teaching In The Project-Based Learning Programme: An Instrument And A Development Process, Gary Pan, Venky Shankararaman, Kevin Koh, Sandy Gan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Students' evaluation of teaching (SET) is widely adopted in most universities. Besides allowing teachers to improve their teaching, SET offers an important input for university administrators' consideration in faculty promotion, contract renewal, salary increase and teaching award. While the practice of using SET instrument is well established, it remains ambiguous in the SET literature whether a dedicated SET instrument is used for alternative teaching pedagogy. Our paper argues that SET instrument may need to be re-designed to reflect the idiosyncrasy of another teaching pedagogy. Accordingly, this paper presents the development process of a SET instrument used to measure an alternative …


Forecast Pooling Or Information Pooling During Crises? Midas Forecasting Of Gdp In A Small Open Economy, Hwee Kwan Chow-Tan, Daniel Han Jul 2021

Forecast Pooling Or Information Pooling During Crises? Midas Forecasting Of Gdp In A Small Open Economy, Hwee Kwan Chow-Tan, Daniel Han

SMU Economics and Statistics Working Paper Series

This study compares two distinct approaches, pooling forecasts from single indicator MIDAS models versus pooling information from indicators into factor MIDAS models, for short-term Singapore GDP growth forecasting with a large ragged-edge mixed frequency dataset. We investigate their relative predictive performance in a pseudo-out-of-sample forecasting exercise from 2007Q4 to 2020Q3. In the stable growth non-crisis period, no substantial difference in predictive performance is found across forecast models. We find factor MIDAS models dominate both the quarterly benchmark model and the forecast pooling strategy by wide margins in the Global Financial Crisis and the Covid-19 crisis. Reflecting the small open nature …


Special Report On Covid-19 Vaccination Trends Among Older Adults In Singapore, Micah Tan, Paulin T. Straughan, Wensi Lim, Grace Cheong Jul 2021

Special Report On Covid-19 Vaccination Trends Among Older Adults In Singapore, Micah Tan, Paulin T. Straughan, Wensi Lim, Grace Cheong

ROSA Research Briefs

This report examines trends in vaccination among older adults in Singapore to better understand why segments of older adults continue to resist vaccination against COVID-19. We find that individuals who were most likely to still be waiting to vaccinate or to not want to be vaccinated as of June 2021; are relatively older (aged 71-75), are of lower socioeconomic status (lower education levels and living in 1-3 room HDB flats), were the least likely to rely on Newspapers and Government Sources as sources of information for COVID-19 related news in November 2020, were least trusting of all sources of information, …


Are Simple Mechanisms Optimal When Agents Are Unsophisticated?, Jiangtao Li, Piotr Dworczak Jul 2021

Are Simple Mechanisms Optimal When Agents Are Unsophisticated?, Jiangtao Li, Piotr Dworczak

Research Collection School Of Economics

We study the design of mechanisms involving agents that have limited strategic sophistication. The literature has identified several notions of simple mechanisms in which agents can determine their optimal strategy even if they lack cognitive skills such as predicting other agents' strategies (strategy-proof mechanisms), contingent reasoning (obviously strategy-proof mechanisms), or foresight (strongly obviously strategy-proof mechanisms). We examine whether it is optimal for the mechanism designer who faces strategically unsophisticated agents to offer a mechanism from the corresponding class of simple mechanisms. We show that when the designer uses a mechanism that is not simple, while she loses the ability to …


Generalized Local-To-Unity Models, Liyu Dou, Ulrich K. Müller Jul 2021

Generalized Local-To-Unity Models, Liyu Dou, Ulrich K. Müller

Research Collection School Of Economics

We introduce a generalization of the popular local‐to‐unity model of time series persistence by allowing for p autoregressive (AR) roots and p − 1 moving average (MA) roots close to unity. This generalized local‐to‐unity model, GLTU(p), induces convergence of the suitably scaled time series to a continuous time Gaussian ARMA(p,p − 1) process on the unit interval. Our main theoretical result establishes the richness of this model class, in the sense that it can well approximate a large class of processes with stationary Gaussian limits that are not entirely distinct from the unit root benchmark. We show that Campbell and …


Digital Innovation: A Catalyst And Enabler Of Achieving Business Sustainability, Clarence Goh, Gary Pan, Poh Sun Seow, Shankararaman, Venky Jul 2021

Digital Innovation: A Catalyst And Enabler Of Achieving Business Sustainability, Clarence Goh, Gary Pan, Poh Sun Seow, Shankararaman, Venky

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Today, many companies are actively incorporating sustainability principles into their business strategies. This movement is likely to have resulted from an ongoing shift in the demands and behaviours of customers, employees, partners, governments, investors and other stakeholders that expect companies to act with integrity and in a way that benefits wider society. The emphasis on achieving sustainability goals has led to increasing adoption of “triple bottom line”, which suggests that companies ought to pay attention to more than just the bottom-line, but also measure their environmental and societal impacts that may help to achieve long-term business growth. Typically, companies with …


Information Avoidance And Medical Screening: A Field Experiment In China, Yufeng Li, Juanjuan Meng, Changcheng Song, Kai Zheng Jul 2021

Information Avoidance And Medical Screening: A Field Experiment In China, Yufeng Li, Juanjuan Meng, Changcheng Song, Kai Zheng

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Will individuals, especially high-risk individuals, avoid a disease test because of information avoidance? We conduct a field experiment to investigate this issue. We vary the price of a diabetes test (price experiment) and offer both a diabetes test and a cancer test (disease experiment) after eliciting participants’ subjective beliefs about their disease risk. We find evidence that, first, some people avoid the test even when there is neither a monetary nor a transaction cost, and second, both low- and high-risk individuals select out of the test as the price increases. We explain our findings using three classes of models of …


A Unified Market Model For Swaptions And Constant Maturity Swaps, Chyng Wen Tee, Jeroen Kerkhof Jul 2021

A Unified Market Model For Swaptions And Constant Maturity Swaps, Chyng Wen Tee, Jeroen Kerkhof

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Internal-rate-of-return (IRR) settled swaptions are the main interest rate volatility instruments in the European interest rate markets. Industry practice is to use an approximation formula to price IRR swaptions based on Black model, which is not arbitrage-free. We formulate a unified market model to incorporate both swaptions and constant maturity swaps (CMS) pricing under a single, self-consistent framework. We demonstrate that the model is able to calibrate to market quotes well, and is also able to efficiently price both IRR-settled and swap-settled swaptions, along with CMS products. We use the model to illustrate the difference in implied volatilities for IRR-settled …


One Year On Since Ge2020: Thinking Afresh For The Post-Covid Era, Tan K. B. Eugene Jul 2021

One Year On Since Ge2020: Thinking Afresh For The Post-Covid Era, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In a commentary, SMU Associate Professor of Law Eugene Tan opined that even as political competition in Singapore sharpens, a deeper understanding and broader consensus must develop on critical issues. He believes that remaking Singapore to be a fairer, more just, and compassionate society in a post-Covid world is a key responsibility for Parliament.


Understanding But Unhelpful: Do Grateful People Value Responsiveness Or Perceived Benefit When Receiving Help?, Elizabeth Lim Jul 2021

Understanding But Unhelpful: Do Grateful People Value Responsiveness Or Perceived Benefit When Receiving Help?, Elizabeth Lim

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Two studies examined the links between the grateful disposition, cognitive appraisals (perceived value and perceived responsiveness), state gratitude, and affiliative intentions (one’s desire to build or maintain relationships with his/her benefactor). In Study 1, 248 participants went through a guided scenario task where they recalled help experiences that were helpful and not so helpful. Dispositional gratitude predicted perceived value and perceived responsiveness (H1A and H1B). These cognitive appraisals in turn predicted state gratitude (H2 and H3). Finally, state gratitude predicted affiliative intentions (H4). Supporting H5A and H5B, cognitive appraisals and state gratitude mediated the link between dispositional gratitude and affiliative …


The Taxation Of Cryptocurrency Gains, Vincent Ooi Jul 2021

The Taxation Of Cryptocurrency Gains, Vincent Ooi

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Taking Singapore as an example, this article lays out a series of tests for determining whether gains arising from the disposal of cryptocurrencies are trade or business income, “all other income” or capital gains. It also considers the possibility of a presumption that individuals engaging in such transactions are gambling.


Tracetogether And Safeentry Were Never Foolproof In Averting Recent Fishery Port And Ktv Clusters, Mark Findlay Jul 2021

Tracetogether And Safeentry Were Never Foolproof In Averting Recent Fishery Port And Ktv Clusters, Mark Findlay

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Don’t blame the technology. COVID-19 control technology depends on the cooperation of people to be fully effective, says SMU Professor Mark Findlay. Singapore has one of the best subscribed COVID-19 tracing, tracking and safe entry apps worldwide. Then how is it that we are back to Phase 2 (Heightened Alert)? It would be tempting but wrong to blame the technology as being insufficiently intrusive or robust. A look at the recent outbreak suggests we should avoid an over-reliance on tech solutions when incompatible human behaviours are at work.


One Year On Since Ge2020: Thinking Afresh For The Post-Covid Era, Tan K. B. Eugene Jul 2021

One Year On Since Ge2020: Thinking Afresh For The Post-Covid Era, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In this commentary, the author opined that even as political competition in Singapore sharpens, a deeper understanding and broader consensus must develop on critical issues. He believes that remaking Singapore to be a fairer, more just, and compassionate society in a post-Covid world is a key responsibility for Parliament.


The Belt And Road Initiative Agreements: Characteristics, Rationale, And Challenges, Heng Wang Jul 2021

The Belt And Road Initiative Agreements: Characteristics, Rationale, And Challenges, Heng Wang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has brought with it an unprecedented number of agreements. BRI agreements consist of primary agreements (particularly MOUs) and secondary agreements (like performance agreements). They are a distinct, landmark feature of the BRI. Focusing on primary agreements and their close link with secondary agreements, this paper explores the following questions: What are the legal status and characteristics of primary agreements? Why are they adopted by China? What challenges do they face? BRI primary agreements can be regarded as a form of soft law, but that repurposes soft law characteristics for project development rather than rule …


The Unmeritorious ‘Legality’/‘Merits’ Distinction In Singapore Administrative Law, Benjamin Joshua Ong Jul 2021

The Unmeritorious ‘Legality’/‘Merits’ Distinction In Singapore Administrative Law, Benjamin Joshua Ong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Singapore courts often state that judicial review of executive decision-making ought only to involve an inquiry into the ‘legality’ of a decision or the ‘decision-making process’, and not the ‘decision itself’ or its ‘merits’ – let us call this the ‘Distinction’. This paper argues that the Distinction should be expunged from Singapore law. The Distinction has its roots in English case law which aimed to prevent the courts from arbitrarily substituting their decision for the executive’s by reason of mere disagreement. But Singapore case law has gone further and treated the Distinction as a general principle applicable to all …


Cmio Holds Value For Minority Communities, Tan K. B. Eugene Jul 2021

Cmio Holds Value For Minority Communities, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In a commentary, SMU Associate Professor of Law Eugene Tan discussed the intrinsic and symbolic value of the Chinese-Malay-Indian-Others (CMIO) classification, and explained how it matters to all communities, but more so for the minorities. He called for continual dialogue and meaningful engagement on race issues to nurture Singapore's civic identity while fully recognising its multiple roots, to strengthen the Singaporean identity and ethos.


Step-Wise Deep Learning Models For Solving Routing Problems, Liang Xin, Wen Song, Zhiguang Cao, Jie Zhang Jul 2021

Step-Wise Deep Learning Models For Solving Routing Problems, Liang Xin, Wen Song, Zhiguang Cao, Jie Zhang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Routing problems are very important in intelligent transportation systems. Recently, a number of deep learning-based methods are proposed to automatically learn construction heuristics for solving routing problems. However, these methods do not completely follow Bellman's Principle of Optimality since the visited nodes during construction are still included in the following subtasks, resulting in suboptimal policies. In this article, we propose a novel step-wise scheme which explicitly removes the visited nodes in each node selection step. We apply this scheme to two representative deep models for routing problems, pointer network and transformer attention model (TAM), and significantly improve the performance of …