Update 3/2/2007: Revised CV; uploaded paper: Exclusive Dealing with Imperfect Downstream Competition.
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Update 29/7/2006: Revised CV uploaded. Updated current research. Tentative Itinerary: 21/8 Manila, 28/8 Singapore, 1/9 Paris, 1/9 Toulouse. My language course at Alliance Fran�aise begins 4/9 which runs for a month then school starts.
You can find past syllabi for my courses in Toulouse here: MPSE Les plans de cours
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Update 9/4/2006: I've uploaded (see Papers section below) my Honours Thesis on stock exchanges as two-sided platforms. It's not as good as I wanted it to be but I hope it's good enough for my markers (I need to get an A- for my First Class Honours). Nonetheless, I was able to find a very interesting result from this "extended essay" (as Peter Wilson always reminds us). The result basically tells us that for certain (realistic) conditions, we can have lower prices when there is only a monopolist compared to when we have a rival firm. Another justification for monopolies without using economies of scale, empty core, etc. arguments? Anyway, Christian Roessler (Univ Melbourne) and Helge Sanner (Potsdam) have done work on this recently and Helge told me that some few others are also doing research on this topic. Quite exciting and a bit ground-breaking.
On the grad school front, I've decided to go to Toulouse for my MSc (and PhD eventually). Here are the results of my apps:
1. Toulouse: admitted with funding of around Eur 1200/mo + housing allowance + plane tickets + language course (Eiffel Scholarship)
2. Penn State: admitted with tuition waiver and funding of USD13,455 per 10-month year (no summer stipend)
3. University College London: admitted (financial aid to be known by June)
4. Oxford: admitted (no funding)
5. Stockholm School of Economics: admitted with tuition waiver and funding of around SEK13,200 per month (USD1500?)
6. Northwestern: no news...there's a possibility that they did not receive my application (I'm considering this as a rejection)
7. Stockholm University: since this is the same program as SSE and I declined SSE's offer, I doubt that I'll be hearing from them anymore
8. National University of Singapore: nominated for President's Graduate Fellowship
By the way, my paper with Julian on exclusive deals with imperfect downstream competition is invited for revision in IJIO. We just need to follow what the referees suggested and then it's close to being published (hopefully).
Hmm...I currently have no ideas for a new paper (possibly extend stock exchange model?) but I'm busy doing RA work for Julian. I'm quite excited with his project with Jerry Hausman!
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Current Research Interests:
Exclusive Dealing; Contract Theory; Land Reform and other Informal Economy issues; Applications of Laplace Approximations in Econometrics; Bilateral Bargaining and Exclusive Deals; Monopoly and Competition; Bounded Rationality in IO models; Intersection of IO and Growth
Papers:
Exclusive Dealing with Imperfect Downstream Competition (with Julian Wright), International Journal of Industrial Organization, forthcoming 2006.
Technical Appendix to Exclusive Dealing with Imperfect Downstream Competition: Observable Contracts (with Julian Wright), 2006.
A Two-Sided Market Analysis of Stock Exchanges, Honours Thesis, National University of Singapore, March 2006.
Exclusive Dealing and Entry, when Buyers Compete: Comment (with Julian Wright) mimeo NUS, September 2005.
Intergenerational Transmission of Family Formation Attitudes in Singapore: The Role of the Father, 6th ISPCAN Conference, Singapore Children's Society Grant, November 2005.
A MATLAB� Implementation of a Halton Sequence-Based GHK Simulator for Multinomial Probit Models
Overtonnaging in Liner Shipping Cooperative Agreements: A Non-cooperative Game Theory Approach
Dads, Your Time Matters: An Economic Analysis of the Importance of Father Involvement, 85th Annual Meeting of the Southwestern Economics Association, March 2005.
Short Articles:
Economics-related:
Mixed Signals in Courtship as Suboptimal
Taming the Bull? (EC5880 Assignment 3)
The More Not Necessarily the Merrier (ENSemble 2003/2004)
PH1101E Essays:
**these papers are edited for the web (basically, I removed the appendices) and aren't the original ones.
Wax Example and the Argument of Change
Java Applet:
Sp-Dg Model (Phillips Curve) **must have the latest Java RE..doesn't seem to work in other systems
Sample Layouts:
ENSemble 2004/2005 Sample Interview Page/Spread
ENSemble 2004/2005 Sample Page
Miscellaneous
Proposal for Research Grant (Singapore Children's Society)
Abstract for Southwestern Economics Conference
email: [email protected]
last updated: 3 Feb 2007
Past Updates:
Update 2/1/2006: Papers and current research section updated. Basically added new papers on exclusive dealing with imperfect downstream competition and the ISPCAN paper.
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Update 25/10/2005: The technical appendix for "Exclusive Dealing with Differentiated Buyers" is now uploaded in the Papers section. The main paper is still in-progress. The ISPCAN paper (intergenerational transmission of attitudes in S'pore) would be finished by the end of the month, hopefully.
Here's my tentative list of schools I'm applying to (aside from NUS of course): University of Toulouse, Stockholm University and Stockholm School of Economics. I'm still thinking about applying to Northwestern since somehow my supervisor is encouraging me to go for top schools in IO.
I have some ideas for a new quick paper. It's on happiness and relative income. Prof Ng Yew Kwang's talk really inspired me to look into this topic.
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Update 7/10/2005: Here's a picture (low resolution) from the FASS Awards Ceremony held last August-->
Also, the short note (on exclusive deals with competing retailers) A/P Wright and I were working on is already uploaded in his website. Just click this link to read the paper.
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Update 17/7/2005: Updated Current Research section. By the way, the Economics Department is allowing me to take EC6103: Econometric Modelling and Applications II which according to our undergrad advisor, is the most advanced econometric course the department is offering (since this is a PhD course). Quite scary but I'm looking forward to it.
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Update 22/5/2005: Updated Current Research section--> Exclusive Dealing (version: 22 May) and results from initial testing of intergenerational hypothesis (family formation attitudes) using Ho Kong Weng's data set on the attitudes of JC and Sec (?) students in Singapore.
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Update 14/5/2005: Current Research section
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Update 21/4/2005: Added new papers in the Papers section
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Update 3/3/2005: Current Research section updated. I hope to accomplish these papers by October this year.
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Update 10/2/2005: I'm finally done with the SWEA paper.
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Update 6/1/2005: Uploaded in the Current Research section is the powerpoint presentation for the Singapore Children Society's Research and Advocacy meeting next week. I'm required to give a preliminary presentation as part of the research grant.
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Update 3/1/2005: Uploaded in the Work-in progress section is the ENSemble 04/05 draft. Check it out!
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Update 25/12/2004: Christmas day today. Anyway, I just submitted the U21 paper yesterday. Do read the paper if you have time and email me if you have comments. Thanks!
-Mike
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Update 10/12/2004: I just uploaded my "working" paper which is truly a work-in-progress. My target is to finish this paper by the 24th of December in time for submission for the U21 Undergraduate Research Conference. NUS is sponsoring 3 undergrads to this conference at the University of Virginia. I really don't expect to be chosen because I think NUS has a bit of a Science/Engineering bias, for which I don't blame them. Nonetheless, it's good that by the 24th, I have at least written a major part of (almost) the same paper I'm going to present in the SWEA Annual Meeting in New Orleans. By the way, FASS Dean's Office agreed to give me partial funding worth S$2000 for New Orleans. Anyway, deadline for the paper in New Orleans is on the 12th of Feb so I still have a lot of time to run more simulations and refine the model.
-Mike
I just realized that if I'm chosen to represent NUS in the U21 conference, I can travel directly to West Virginia after the New Orleans conference to save money on international airfare. Two conferences with one plane ticket. Talk about economies of scale!
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Suddenly this archive has been receiving lots of hits--I think due to the Philstar interview! Brian suggested that I create a Blog but what shall I write regularly? I rather do an ad-hoc what's up with me kinda thing here than set-up a blogger account or something.
Some updates: Last week, I received an email from Southwestern Economics Conference saying that they accepted my abstract for the conference in New Orleans. Since they don't give travel grants, I appealed to the Vice-Dean for undergrad funding, which according to my supervisor, is non-existent. With some stroke of luck, I think the Dean's office listened to my plea and I got an email from the Finance Manager yesterday telling me that the office is willing to give partial support. They're still deliberating on how much they will give. Estimated total expense is pegged around S$3,300 which is a lot of money! I don't expect to get full subsidy (of course they won't do that; I heard that grad students' conference funding is S$2,000) but I do hope they at least cover my plane ticket and part of my accommodations. If not, then I can't afford to go. By the way, the same day I got the email from SW Economics, I received a call from Singapore Children's Society. The girl told me that my grant was approved. It's just S$900 but it will definitely help me with my research-related expenses such as topping-up my cash card, buying books, ordering journal articles over the net, etc. I might even buy this nice pen-scanner (I don't know how you call it).
-Mike
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