Suchergebnisse

Abstract.In the face of global competition, many countries are adopting a flexicurity approach to labour regulation, providing employers with greater flexibility to hire and retrench workers while helping workers transition to new jobs. This review of six Asian countries finds that China and the Republic of Korea have enacted such reforms; Singapore and Malaysia provide some ingredients of flexicurity, though no unemployment insurance; India and Sri Lanka have introduced few reforms and continue to rely on an older model of employer‐based security. To support informal workers, the Governments of China, India and Sri Lanka use public works, self‐employment programmes and skills training.

Despite having the fifth highest per capita GDP in the world (according to IMF PPP statistics for 2007), and despite numerous government efforts to spur innovation, Singapore has faced difficulties in establishing a durable base of entrepreneurial activity. Many ascribe this failure to the city-state's policies, which are often portrayed as generating a culture of risk aversion and a lack of creativity. In contrast to this conventional view, this article argues that the city-state's institutional arrangements generate conflicting innovation incentives and ultimately undermine innovative activity. Statistical tests across twenty-three countries offer evidence that is consistent with this argument.

Despite increasing interest in the relationship between trade and macroeconomic performance in development economics, very limited studies have been conducted on the causal links between exports and productivity growth in Asian economies. This paper examines empirically the interplay between exports and productivity growth for eight East Asian economies in a multivariate framework by applying bound tests and modified Wald tests. The results indicate that causality is bi-directional in the case of Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, while unidirectional from productivity to exports for Mainland China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. These findings provide little support for the conventional export-led growth hypothesis.

Abstract.  A review of literature on the theory of stock exchange competition provides the basis for a template model of a successful stock exchange. Three junior stock exchanges in East Asia which stated their ambitions to become a regional exchange for emerging firms are compared with the template and with the AIM section of the London Stock Exchange; the Tokyo Stock Exchange Mothers, Hong Kong Stock Exchange Growth Enterprise Market and the Singapore Exchange Catalist. Our analysis indicates that the AIM and Catalist markets have the closest fit to our template model, while the GEM and Mothers show material departures from it.

This paper is part of a project based on a broad data collection of policies in selected countries, with a special focus on the attraction of foreign R&D investments. The purpose of the research is to contribute to effective policy-making, capable of fostering multinational corporations' (MNCs) investments in Brazil. In this context, the paper aims at identifying and examining the main policies to attract MNC technological activities in China, India, Ireland, Israel, Singapore, and Taiwan, in order to illustrate successful experiences and, based on them, to analyse the Brazilian case. The experiences and, based on them, to analyse the Brazilian case.

Since the events of 9/11, ordinary people and governments are struggling more than ever to make sense of the seemingly senseless acts of terrorists that threaten nearly all countries, directly or indirectly. Singapore Management University philosophy professor Thomas Brian Mooney is coauthor, along with Rob Imre and Ben Clarke, of a new book, Terrorism, Causes and Cures: Legal, Political and Philosophical Perspectives, to be published later this year by Ashgate Press. Mooney talks to Knowledge@SMU about the importance of "storytelling", as compared with adopting a purely rational approach, to help understand the causes of terrorism.

This article compares the New Public Management (NPM) reform in Hong Kong and Singapore. First of all, it highlights how the macroeconomic environment, the political system, and state traditions, factors that are commonly identified as affecting the pattern of NPM reform in western liberal democracies, assume different contexts and significance in affecting reform in Asian states. With these general factors, we further compare the NPM reform of these two Asian newly industrialized countries in the areas of economic, administrative, and social governance, and identify the similarities and differences in the objectives of reform, the levels of reform, and the factors affecting such reform in these two cases.

This study examines the return behavior of 15 emerging equity markets for persistent deviations from the fundamental value hypothesis. The duration dependence test shows that rational expectations bubble do not cause deviations from fundamental value in any of the markets. Markov chain test results imply that markets in China, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore deviate from their fundamental values due to non-random price changes. A price decrease is more likely to follow two periods of price decrease in these four equity markets. Finally, time reversibility test reveals that all equity markets, except for Jordan and Egypt, exhibit asymmetrical price patterns, suggesting departures from fundamental values.

Abstract.  This paper reassesses economic growth in five South‐East Asian countries utilizing a non‐parametric productivity index and parametric techniques to trace the ultimate source/s of growth. Our results show that there is no single explanation for the growth performance of the countries in our sample. The results, particularly with reference to the role of embodied technology are comforting in terms of policy implications for countries such as Singapore, where, given the capital output ratios, there are lower returns to future capital accumulation. The possibility of capital being embodied through technological change makes future prospects much brighter for such a country.

This paper contrasts the conventional balance sheet approach to the analysis of economic disturbances in emerging markets with the alternative balance sheet approach that applies and extends Minsky's Financial Instability Hypothesis to (open) emerging market economies. Earlier balance sheet studies are found to be flawed because of a failure to disaggregate firms' balance sheets. Examination of such balance sheets in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and Hong Kong suggests that firms in the three crisis countries did share common causes of financial fragility, but that the level of financial development and the particular domestic economic and political situation also affected their situation.

This paper examines whether there was contagion from the Thai securitised real estate market to four other prominent Asia‐Pacific property markets. Based on Forbes and Rigobon's methodology for calculating conditional and unconditional correlations, analysis shows that there was some contagion effect from Thailand to Hong Kong and Singapore during the period between early July and late October 1997. However, if the period includes the stock market crisis of late October 1997, there is little evidence for real estate market contagion, as it would seem that the impact of the equity markets were more relevant thereafter, in affecting other financial markets than the property markets themselves.

Abstract: The teachings of Confucius and the heritage of Confucianism in East Asian societies such as Japan, Korea, China, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Singapore have encouraged loyalty to the state, including the modernizing nation-state. Such modernization, at least when it has taken the form of market-based, capitalist economic growth or development, has aided democratization. Confucianism guards no special sphere of conscience against the state in the way that some other spiritual traditions have, but the Confucian tradition sponsors no fundamentalisms and has even been a protoliberal influence. Its career has been ironic, but it has not hurt and may even have helped democracy.

ABSTRACTThis article examines the main social security programs, narrowly defined to include income maintenance for the aged and health care, in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, and reveals the large degree to which the statutory programs depend on private provision, particularly, private financing. It further shows that efforts are underway to reduce, or at least to arrest the expansion of role of the state by a corresponding expansion in the role of private provision and financing. The expansion of social security for the aged in Thailand is an exception in this regard. I conclude that both inefficiency and inequity have been promoted.

The successful implementation of total quality management (TQM) in an organization requires adopting the right cultural approach. In many Southeast Asian societies, the influence of Confucianism on leadership style, social values and work attitudes has affected TQM practices. This article examines Confucius' influence on the structure and criteria emphases of Southeast Asian National Quality Awards (NQAs) that have sprung up in the past decade. The framework of the Singapore Quality Award serves as an appropriate comparator. Ten Confucian principles on leadership, organizational culture and work values were analyzed. Their applicability to the development of NQAs and to the long-term success of total quality organizations is discussed.

AbstractWe examine the differences in the investment behavior of independent and finance‐affiliated venture capital firms (VCFs). We find that differences in internal management mechanisms and staff backgrounds lead to external performance differences. Using VC‐backed companies listed in Singapore as our sample, we find significant differences between these two types of VCFs in industry preference, investment duration, VCF syndication, number of board seats, initial underpricing, and long‐term market returns. Independent VCFs add more value to their portfolios. Thus, we conclude that the participation of independent VCFs is an important corporate‐level factor for the success of the venture capital market.