Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

An Interactive Learning Environment For A Dynamic Educational Digital Library, Ee Peng Lim, Dion Hoe-Lian Goh, Yin-Leng Theng, Eng-Kai Suen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

GeogDL is a digital library of geography examination resources designed to assist students in preparing for a national geography examination in Singapore. We describe an interactive learning environment built into GeogDL that consists of four major components. The practice and review module allows students to attempt individual examination questions, the mock exam provides a simulation of the actual geography examination, the trends analysis tool provides an overview of the types of questions asked in previous examinations, while the contributions module allows students and teachers to create and share knowledge within the digital library.

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

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

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

Multiple Testing To Establish Superiority/Equivalence Of A New Treatment Compared With K Standard Treatments For Unbalanced Designs, Koon Shing Kwong, Siu Hung Cheung, Wai-Sum Chan

Research Collection School Of Economics

In clinical studies, multiple superiority/equivalence testing procedures can be applied to classify a new treatment as superior, equivalent (same therapeutic effect), or inferior to each set of standard treatments. Previous stepwise approaches (Dunnett and Tamhane, 1997, Statistics in Medicine 16, 2489–2506; Kwong, 2001, Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference 97, 359–366) are only appropriate for balanced designs. Unfortunately, the construction of similar tests for unbalanced designs is far more complex, with two major difficulties: (i) the ordering of test statistics for superiority may not be the same as the ordering of test statistics for equivalence; and (ii) the correlation structure …

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 …

On Leverage In A Stochastic Volatility Model, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper is concerned with specification for modelling financial leverage effect in the context of stochastic volatility (SV) models. Two alternative specifications co-exist in the literature. One is the Euler approximation to the well known continuous time SV model with leverage effect and the other is the discrete time SV model of Jacquier, Polson and Rossi (2004, Journal of Econometrics, forthcoming). Using a Gaussian nonlinear state space form with uncorrelated measurement and transition errors, I show that it is easy to interpret the leverage effect in the conventional model whereas it is not clear how to obtain the leverage effect …

The Case For Clumsiness, Michael Thompson, Marco Verweij

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Most climatologists agree that by burning fossil fuels and engaging in other forms of consumption and production we are increasing the amount of greenhouse gases that float around in the atmosphere. These gases, in trapping some of the sun’s heat, warm the earth and enable life. The trouble is, some predict, that if we continue to accumulate those gases, over the course of the new century the average temperature on earth will rise and local climates will change, with possibly catastrophic consequences. Will this indeed happen? If so, should we do something about it? And if yes, what and when? …

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

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

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

Production And Political Economy In The Animation Industry: Why Insourcing And Outsourcing Occur, Feichin, Ted Tschang, Andrea Goldstein

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper presents a framework for explaining production patterns in creative industries. In particular, we focus on the conditions under which insourcing occurs in the US threedimensional animation industry and where outsourcing in the conventional two-dimensional animation industry occurs to the Philippines. The work that is outsourced is not the most creative component of the entire production process. Institutional decisions (as related to the location of decision makers and primary markets), and business conditions in the world market, have both positively and negatively affected the local Filipino industry and its position within the global division of labor. Implications for knowledge-based …

Smu Receives Record S$200 Million -- Fund To Go Towards Scholars Programme, Fund For Excellence And Endowment For The University, Singapore Management University

SMU Press Releases

No abstract provided.

Exporting Expertise: The Singapore Experience In Vietnam, Caroline Yeoh, Siang Yeung Wong, Amrit Vaidyanath

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Infrastructure can be unreliable and administration subject to corruption in Asia’s rapidly emerging economies. This context presented Singapore with unique opportunities to export its ‘positive reputation’ to locations where these attributes are less certain. The strategic initiative is premised on the perception that Singapore’s good relations with multinationals, as well as ‘guanxi’, or connections, with Asian business networks, will give the industrial-township projects a marketing advantage. To complement the extensive literature on Singapore’s flagship projects in Indonesia and China, this paper takes a closer look at Singapore’s lesser-known project in Vietnam. Evidence from on-site surveys is presented. It finds that …

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 …

Emotions Across Cultures And Methods, Christie N. Scollon, Ed Diener, Shigehiro Oishi, Robert Biswas-Diener

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Participants included 46 European American, 33 Asian American, 91 Japanese, 160 Indian, and 80 Hispanic students (N = 416). Discrete emotions, as well as pleasant and unpleasant emotions, were assessed: (a) with global self-report measures, (b) using an experience-sampling method for 1 week, and (c) by asking participants to recall their emotions from the experience sampling week. Cultural differences emerged for nearly all measures. The inclusion of indigenous emotions in India and Japan did not alter the conclusions substantially, although pride showed a pattern across cultures that differed from the other positive emotions. In all five culturalgroupsandforbothpleasantandunpleasantemotions,globalreportsof emotionpredictedretrospective recall even …

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 …

Institutional Change And Persistence: The Evolution Of Poland's Electoral System, 1989-2001, Kenneth Benoit, Jacqueline Hayden

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Electoral systems are uniquely distributive political institutions that shape political outcomes, yet are themselves endogenously shaped outcomes of political choices. In Poland, party system development has involved not only parties adapting to electoral institutions in each election, but also parties modifying these institutions prior to every election. We model electoral system change as driven by partisan self-interest in maximizing seat share and test it in five episodes of electoral system change in Poland from 1989 to 2001, comparing parties’ support for electoral law alternatives to their expectations of seat shares from those alternatives. Data consists of opinion polls, roll-call votes, …

Integrating Business Opportunities In Contiguous Economies: Perspectives From Singapore's Gambit In Indonesia, Caroline Yeoh, Sang M Lee, W. Ra Jang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

No abstract provided.

On Leverage In A Stochastic Volatility Model, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper is concerned with specification for modelling financial leverage effect in the context of stochastic volatility (SV) models. Two alternative specifications co-exist in the literature. One is the Euler approximation to the well known continuous time SV model with leverage effect and the other is the discrete time SV model of Jacquier, Polson and Rossi (2004, Journal of Econometrics, forthcoming). Using a Gaussian nonlinear state space form with uncorrelated measurement and transition errors, I show that it is easy to interpret the leverage effect in the conventional model whereas it is not clear how to obtain the leverage effect …

Revised Estimates Of Dimension And Exercise Variance Components In Assessment Center Postexercise Dimension Ratings, Charles E. Lance, Tracy A. Lambert, Amanda G. Gewin, Filip Lievens, James M. Conway

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The authors reanalyzed assessment center (AC) multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) matrices containing correlations among postexercise dimension ratings (PEDRs) reported by F. Lievens and J. M. Conway (2001). Unlike F. Lievens and J. M. Conway, who used a correlated dimension-correlated uniqueness model, we used a different set of confirmatory-factor-analysis-based models (1-dimension-correlated Exercise and 1-dimension-correlated uniqueness models) to estimate dimension and exercise variance components in AC PEDRs. Results of reanalyses suggest that, consistent with previous narrative reviews, exercise variance components dominate over dimension variance components after all. Implications for AC construct validity and possible redirections of research on the validity of ACs are discussed.

Behind Closed Doors: Governmental Transparency Gives Way To Secrecy, Ann Florini

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

A few years ago, I sat at a table in a Washington think-tank with a group of mid-level Japanese officials. They were spending several weeks in the United States on a study tour, and I was meeting with them to give a talk on governance and access to information. Japan had recently passed, but not yet implemented, a sweeping freedom of information law, and the bureaucrats were puzzled about how they were to implement it. Or even whether they should implement it. After all, as one earnest young woman asked, if the government starts giving people information, they might want …

Contextualism Reconsidered: Some Skeptical Reflections, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

A number of theorists have touted the merits of the contextual approach to political theory, arguing that a close examination of real-world cases is more likely to yield both theoretical insight and practical solutions to pressing problems. This is particularly evident, it is argued, in the field of multiculturalism in political theory. The present paper offers some skeptical reflections on this view, arguing the merits of a view of political theory which sees the contextual approach as less distinctive than its proponents imagine, and less useful than many would suggest. It maintains that there are serious limits to what political …

A Semi-Parametric Two-Component Compound Mixture Model And Its Application To Estimating Malaria Attributable Fractions, Jing Qin, Denis H. Y. Leung

Research Collection School Of Economics

Malaria remains a major epidemiologic problem in many developing countries. Malaria is defined as the presence of parasites and symptoms (usually fever) due to the parasites. In endemic areas, an individual may have symptoms attributable either to malaria or to other causes. From a clinical viewpoint, it is important to correctly diagnose an individual who has developed symptoms so that the appropriate treatments can be given. From an epidemiologic and economic viewpoint, it is important to determine the proportion of malaria-affected cases in individuals who have symptoms so that policies on intervention program can be developed. Once symptoms have developed …

Social Trust And Economic Governance, Fali Huang

Research Collection School Of Economics

The paper investigates the dynamic relationship between social trust and economic governance using a principal-agent model with stochastic returns. To mitigate the inherent moral hazard problem both intrinsic and extrinsic incentives are useful. The cooperative tendency of an agent measures his intrinsic discipline against shirking, the distribution of which characterizes social trust in society. The economic governance methods include direct monitoring and efficiency wage. The main results are the following. An agent with a higher cooperative tendency needs less monitoring and a lower wage to make effort, which brings higher profit for the principal. But competition among principals for more …

The Impact Of War And Wartime On Transition To Adulthood: Vietnam, 1940-1990, Bussarawan Teerawichitchainan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

During the latter half of the 20th century, Vietnam experienced nearly continuous wars, including the Vietnam War (1965-1975). Wars afflicted young Vietnamese adults most and left profound imprints on the life course of those who survived. Based on the 1995 Vietnam Longitudinal Survey, my study uses the life course approach to document how war affects the timing and sequencing of early life course transitions for the Vietnamese growing up between the 1940s and the 1990s. The life course transitions examined include leaving school and entering labor force and first marriage and first birth. I study the impact of war by …

How To Be Chinese: Ethnic Chinese Experience A 'Reawakening' Of Their Chinese Identity, Chang Yau Hoon

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The post-Suharto era is an exciting period for Chinese Indonesians and other minority ethnic groups in Indonesia. After over three decades of cultural and political repression, Chinese Indonesians are now being given the opportunity to express their identity. The re-emergence of Chinese religion, language, and press in Indonesia since the end of the New Order, has had a significant impact on the development of ethnic Chinese identity. The strongly anti-Chinese sentiment expressed in the May 1998 riots in Jakarta and elsewhere in Indonesia, including the looting of Chinese-owned shops and businesses and the racially-motivated rapes, drastically altered the position of …

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.

Re-Examining Public Policy: A Case For Conditional Fees In Singapore?, Gary Chan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Conditional fee agreements are currently prohibited in Singapore. The Singapore courts still adhere to the public policy considerations expressed in the English common law which proscribe maintenance and champerty. However, the United Kingdom as well as Ontario (Canada) and Australia have recently ‘departed’ from the old system prohibiting conditional fee agreements. It is thus timely for Singapore to re-examine the public policy arguments against conditional fee agreements and inquire whether a conditional fee based system ought to be introduced. Apart from the above jurisdictions, lessons will also be drawn from the problems and issues faced by the US and the …

Get The Smu Edge: Make A Difference [Advertisement], Singapore Management University

SMU Press Releases

Get the SMU edge, make a difference. Featuring Lim Kong Wee, Steven Miller, Darren Lim, Deborah Ong (PricewaterhouseCoopers), Tan Siang Leng.

Advertisement

Have U.S. - Japan Trade Agreements Made A Difference?, Byron Gangnes, Craig Parsons

Research Collection School Of Economics

International trade is governed by a complicated patchwork of international treaties, bilateral agreements, and unilateral actions, often directed at trade in very specific commodities. A determination of the impact of trade measures begins with an assessment of their direct effect on trade volumes and prices in targeted sectors. While in some cases—such as the recent U.S. anti-dumping duties on steel—the measures have readily identifiable impacts, in others cases the effects are more difficult to determine.

"I Think They Discriminated Against Me": Using Prototype Theory And Organizational Justice Theory For Understanding Perceived Discrimination In Selection And Promotion Situations, Michael M. Harris, Filip Lievens, Greet Van Hoye

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Research in industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology has generally focused on objective measures of employment discrimination and has virtually neglected individuals' subjective perceptions as to whether a selection or promotion process is discriminatory or not. This paper presents two theoretical models as organizing frameworks to explain candidates' likelihood of perceiving that discrimination has occurred in a certain selection or Promotion situation. The prototype model stresses the importance of the prototypical victim-perpetrator combination, the perceived intention of the decision-maker, and the perceived harm caused as possible antecedents of perceived employment discrimination. In the organizational justice model, procedural, informational, interpersonal, and distributive fairness play …

Effects Of Board Structure On Firm Performance: A Comparison Of Japan And Australia, Ingrid Bonn, Toru Yoshikawa, Phillip H. Phan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This article compares the effects of board size, proportion of female directors, proportion of outside directors and average age of directors on firm performance in Japanese and Australian firms. We found that board size and age of directors were negatively associated with the performance of Japanese firms. For Australian firms, outsider ratio and female director ratio were positively associated with performance.