Righteousness and Profitableness: The Moral Choices of Contemporary Confucian Entrepreneurs

This paper explores the relationship of various trait emotions to the ethical choices of 189 college students who completed a managerial decision-making task as part of an in-basket exercise in a laboratory setting. Prior research regarding emotion influences on ethical decision-making and linkages between emotions and cognition informed hypotheses about how different types of emotions impact ethical choices. Findings supported our expectations that positive and negative emotions classified as active would be more strongly related to interpersonally-directed ethical choices than to organizationally-directed ones, and that passive emotions would be less related to ethical choices than active emotions. Implications for ethical decision-making research and organizational practices are discussed.     

Analysis of Credit Risks in Asset-Backed Securitization Transactions in Singapore

Asset-backed securitization (ABS) is a relatively new financial instrument in Singapore's capital market, which has been accepted by developers (originators) as an alternative source of financing. Credit assessment and rating requirements have not been imposed on the ABS bond issues. Default-risk evaluation has also been understated, if not omitted, in the process of structuring ABS deals. This is the first study that applies a theoretical default-risky swaps valuation model to evaluate credit risks in ABS bonds in Singapore. The Monte-Carlo simulation results, based on the Century Square shopping mall ABS case, show significant effects of the changes in rental volatility and default-free interest rate volatility on the default-risk premium of swap. More specifically, an increase in the rental volatility reduces the default-risky swap values significantly. However, an increase in the instantaneous default-free interest rate volatility increases the default-risk premium of swaps, and this effect is only observed in the high default-free interest rate volatility regime (above 20 percent). The results suggest that the rental dynamics of the securitized real estate are critical in determining the default risks of ABS deals. The fixed-rate (coupon yield) and floating-rate (rental cash flows) should therefore be adequately determined to reflect the default risks, which may be caused by the rental dynamics of the securitized real estate.     

Environmental Requirements,Knowledge Sharing and Green Innovation: Empirical Evidence from the Electronics Industry in China

Building on the Porter hypothesis, which posits that regulatory stringency triggers innovation and thereby allows firms to achieve the dual purpose of environment protection and enhanced business performance, the present research develops an integrative model that explores the determinants of green innovation with a focus being placed on knowledge sharing. Data were collected from 203 green innovation project leaders from electronics manufacturers operating in China. The results indicate that knowledge sharing mediates the relationship between green requirements and new green product success as well as that between green requirements and green product and process innovations. Interestingly, the empirical analysis rejects the hypothesized positive influence of green requirements on green product and process innovations as well as that on new green product success, while confirming that there exists a direct and positive association between green requirements and knowledge sharing. The direct positive impact of knowledge sharing is the strongest on green process innovation. This study provides a theoretical basis for investigating the possible determinants in the causal links between green requirements and green innovation success and establishes that knowledge sharing and green process innovation may be the points where leverage can be applied to best secure innovation success. Implications of the findings on environmental policy and law design are also discussed to see how the regulatory role of the government can be better positioned to facilitate compliance and innovation. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Negative Externalities of Rail Noise and Housing Values: Evidence from the Cessation of Railway Operations in Singapore

The governments of Malaysia and Singapore reached a landmark agreement in May 2010 to end the operations of nearly 80‐year‐old railway lines and stations in Singapore. In our study, the cessation of the railway services operated by Keretapi Tanah Malaya (KTM), a firm owned by the Malaysian government, with effect from July 1, 2011 is used in a quasi‐experiment design to test the effects of the removal of train noise externalities on real estate values. Based on the nonlanded private housing transactions data from January 2005 to June 2013, we find that average prices for houses located within a 400‐m boundary from the railway lines increased by 3.5% relative to prices for houses located outside the 400‐m boundary after the cessation agreement has been announced. The removal of train noise externalities increases housing prices in the affected area by 13.7% on average in the postcessation period of the KTM railway services. Realized economic benefits associated with the railway services cessation were estimated at S$0.36 billion based on houses sold in the post cessation period of the KTM railway services.     

金融危机下的风险管理

2008年以来,全世界都处于经济危机的漩涡之中,风险管理的缺失被认为是其中原因之一.一直以来,风险管理主要侧重于市场、信用和营运风险.对于银行机构来说,这些风险实际上已经在巴塞尔新协议中作了规范,而且都单独对这些风险进行管理和应对.     

Managing relationships within sino-foreign joint ventures

In setting up joint ventures (JVs) in the PRC, foreign staff are compelled to go through a painful management process. This includes encountering a myriad of problems and difficulties, ranging from external environmental problems to internal organizational conflicts of interest. Based on an empirical study of two leading JV pioneers in China, Shanghai Volkswagen Automotive Company Ltd. (SVW) and Beijing Jeep Corp. (BJC), this article suggests that the problems encountered are, in most cases, attributable to managerial relationships and human interaction. It submits that managers working within JVs in China would benefit greatly from understanding the dynamics of the relationships. Looking at this situation from both Western and Chinese perspectives, it sets out to describe the essential themes found in three principle managerial relationships: 1) between two/more parents; 2) between parents and the venture; and 3) between two groups of staff.     

Optimal Timing of Real Estate Investment under an Asymmetric Duopoly

This paper examines the sub-game equilibrium strategies for a duopoly real option model consisting of two firms with asymmetric demand functions. The relative strength of the firms is found to have significant impact on the firms’ equilibrium strategies. Preemptive strategies are critical if difference in strength between the two competing firms is relatively small. Short bursts and recession induced overbuilding are two outcomes in the asymmetric duopoly model. The model, however, predicts that the two phenomena occur in earlier phases of market cycles, rather than in the state of depression. In a depressed market with high volatility, the leader and the follower will both choose the waiting strategies. Construction cascade is, therefore, not an expected phenomenon in a depressed market in the asymmetric duopoly framework. Please forward your comments to the second author at rststf@nus.edu.sg. Your comments are appreciated. The authors wish to thank Stephen Cauley, Walter Torous, an anonymous referee, and participants in the Singapore–Hong Kong Real Estate Research Symposium on 14–15 July 2005 for their constructive comments and suggestions.     

Making trading decisions for financial‐engineered derivatives: a novel ensemble of neural networks using information content

Over the last decades, there has been a growing interest in applying artificial intelligence techniques to solve a spectrum of financial problems. A number of studies have shown promising results in using artificial neural networks (ANNs) to guide investment trading. Given the expanding role of ANNs in financial trading, this paper proposes the use of a hybrid neural network, which consists of two independent ANN architectures, and comparatively evaluates its performance against independent ANNs and econometric models in the trading of a financial‐engineered (synthetic) derivative composed of options on foreign exchange futures. We examine the financial profitability and the market timing ability of the competing neural network models and statistically compare their attributes with those based on linear and nonlinear statistical projections. A random walk model and the option pricing method are also included as benchmarks for comparison. Our empirical investigation finds that, for each of the currencies analysed, trading strategies guided by the proposed dual network are financially profitable and yield a more stable stream of investment returns than the other models. Statistical results strengthen the notion that diffusion of information contents and cross‐validation between the independent components within the dual network are able to reduce bias and extreme decision making over the long run. Moreover, the results are robust with respect to different levels of transaction costs. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Risk Attitude and Housing Wealth Effect

This paper examines whether the housing wealth effect—the consumption change induced by house price appreciation is dependent upon households’ attitudes toward risk. A simple theoretical model is introduced to highlight a negative relationship between the wealth effect and risk aversion. The paper empirically tests for this negative relationship, using data from the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey. The investigation involves two steps. In the first step, we make use of households’ demographics and their risky and liquid asset holdings to estimate risk aversion. The Heckman correction model is applied to address the issue of limited stock market participation. For the second step, we construct pseudo panel data through grouping households by their birth years and their predicted values of risk aversion, and then, we estimate the responses of households’ consumption changes to house price fluctuations by risk-attitude group. Consistent with the prediction of the theoretical model, the estimation results suggest a significant negative relationship between the housing wealth effect and households’ risk attitudes. Households, who are less risk averse, experience greater consumption changes in response to house price appreciation.     

Developer Heterogeneity and Competitive Land Bidding

This paper shows that ignoring differences in developers’ competitive strength and their bidding behavior in land auctions leads to distorted valuation of urban lands. Using the government’s land sale data in Singapore for the sample periods 1990–2011, we found that after controlling for location and space attributes, bid prices for lands are significantly influenced by heterogeneity effects of developers. The two heterogeneity measures used in our study, which are the bid spreads and historical activities in tenders, appear to have significant and positive effects on land bids. When we control for selectivity biases through winning probability of bidders and the bid scale (>10,000 square meters, and >S$50 million in value), we found that bid prices increase when bidders’ winning selectivity is considered. For large bid, bidders’ selectivity, if ignored, will lead to underestimation of the bid prices. The results affirm the hypothesis that heterogeneity in bidders and their selectivity in bidding strategies could have significant impact on the urban land valuation.