Kong Yam Tan

Ranking the liveability of the world's major cities : the global liveable cities index (GLCI)

What Makes a City More Liveable? The Empirical Framework: Methodology, Data and Computation Algorithm The Empirical Findings and Policy Simulation The Liveable City-States of Hong Kong and Singapore The Global Liveable Cities Index in Perspective.

Understanding and Tracking Cost of Living, Wages and Purchasing Power for Expatriates and Ordinary Residents

The following sections are included:Background and Research MotivationLiterature ReviewFactors which Affect Cost of Living, Wages and Purchasing Power for Expatriates and Ordinary ResidentsGeographical Distributions of Cities According to Cost of Living for Expatriates and Cost of Living for Ordinary ResidentsSensitivity of Cost of Living Rankings to Exchange Rate FluctuationsThe Effects of Currency Appreciation on Expatriates and Ordinary ResidentsRelationships between Cost of Living, Purchasing Power and LiveabilityExpected Contributions of the ACI’s Study and Chapter Organisation of the BookReferences

Foreign Direct Investment and Small and Medium Enterprises:Productivity and Access to Finance

There is a large literature dealing with the spillover effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to emerging and developing economies at the aggregate level. Beyond the aggregate impacts, a growing number of studies also examine the impact of FDI spillovers on firms of different sizes, especially small and medium enterprises (SME). This book is dedicated to exploring issues relating to the various interactions between FDI flows, productivity spillovers and SMEs in Asia and beyond. It studies globalization, FDI, and regional innovation in China, and trade and investment liberalization in India. It analyses how to promote SMEs and enhance labor productivity in Singapore. It investigates the impact of intellectual property rights processes on productivity growth. It documents the use of finance and financing patterns of informal firms. It uses empirical analysis to point out the limitations of traditional banks lending to SMEs and suggests possible policy approaches facilitating them to access growth capital. It also provides an empirical investigation of the main determinants of entrepreneurial activities.

Fiscal discipline and competitiveness in newly industrialised economies: lessons from the Nordics model

This paper assesses selected fiscal and competitiveness issues in the newly industrialised economies (NIEs) of Hong Kong, Singapore, (South) Korea and Taiwan since the Asian financial crisis. The NIEs have been globally competitive and successful in maintaining a high degree of fiscal discipline up until the global financial crisis. Despite the temporary worsening of their fiscal balances due to the cyclical downturn, most of the NIEs have bounced back without apparent long-lasting negative repercussions. The paper also undertakes fiscal sustainability computations for the NIEs to assess their fiscal space and also discusses the new Nordics welfare model.

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), Productivity Spillovers and the Role of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Financing: An Overview

There is a large literature dealing with the spillover effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to emerging and developing economies at the aggregate level. Beyond the aggregate impacts, a growing number of studies also examine the impact of FDI spillovers on firms of different sizes, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This special issue of the journal of International Commerce, Economics and Policy (JICEP) features seven empirical papers dedicated to exploring issues relating to the various interactions between FDI flows, productivity spillovers and SMEs in Asia and beyond.

Assessing competitiveness of ASEAN-10 economies

This paper develops a new competitiveness index that ranks the ASEAN-10 economies on various dimensions measuring competitiveness. Our notion of competitiveness is substantially more nuanced and holistic than that of the more traditional and popular competitiveness indices in the literature. The aim of this so-called Asia Competitiveness Institute (ACI) index is to help policy makers in each member country to inform and assess their own status in terms of competitiveness as well as identify the gaps that they need to attend to benefit from regional integration.