ASB Research Series
The ASB Research Series provides a forum for academics from a broad range of disciplines to present their research work. Attendants typically comprise ASB faculty as well as researchers at the World Bank, SEACEN, Bank Negara Malaysia, University of Malaya and other local institutions. Seminars are now virtual and are usually held on Wednesdays at lunch time. If you would like to present at the ASB Research Seminar Series please contact Ambra Mazzelli (ambra.mazzelli@asb.edu.my) or Triwit Ariyathugun (triwit.ariyathugun@asb.edu.my). If you are interested to attend our seminars, you can send an email to the RSS Committee (rsscommittee@asb.edu.my) to obtain the Zoom link and access code.
Upcoming Talks
Stay tuned for more upcoming talks.
Date/Time
Speaker
Title & Abstract
6 January 2021
Monday
Anella Munro
Asia School of Business
The Original Sin Redux: A Model Based Evaluation
Macroeconomics/Finance
Past Talks
Date/Time
Speaker
Title & Abstract
11 November 2020
Wednesday
Willem Smit
Asia School of Business
The Streetlight Effect on a Global Scale: Analysis of Empirical Contexts in Internationalization Research
Marketing
4 November 2020
Wednesday
Lys Kulamadayl
Free University of Amsterdam
Systemic Corruption and International Instruments
International Law
28 October 2020
Wednesday
Juanuan Zhang
MIT Sloan
Genes and Sales
Marketing
14 October 2020
Wednesday
Michael Frese
Asia School of Business
Publishing in high impact journals for social scientists
Management
7 October 2020
Wednesday
Laura Knopfel
King’s College London
Transnational Law as a Bridge Between Legal and Social Structures
International Law
30 September 2020
Wednesday
Stefano Puntoni
RSM Erasmus Universiteit
Consumers and autonomous technology: An emerging framework
Marketing
23 September 2020
Wednesday
Ahsan Ullah
University of Brunei
Xenophobia in the receiving countries: How do migrants deal with it
Sociology
8 Apr 2020
Wednesday
Neha Tripathi
National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School
Impact of COVID-19 on employees’ daily work outcomes
Organizational behavior
26 Feb 2020
Wednesday
Travers Child
China Europe International Business School (Shanghai)
Aid Fragmentation, Corruption, and Conflict
Field: Development economics
20 Jan 2020
Monday
Jansen Calamita
National University of Singapore (NUS)
Investment Law and Corporate Governance (TBC)
Field: International Investment Law
15 Jan 2020
Wednesday
Rodrigo Bandeira-de-Mello
Marrimack College (US), Université Paris-Dauphine
Untitled
Field: Strategy
27 Nov 2019
Wednesday
Kathryn Hochstetler
LSE, UK
Global Environmental Governance and International Development
Field: International Development
20 Nov 2019
Wednesday
Wei Yu
NUS, Industrial Systems Engineering and Management
Does Childhood Adversities Create Great Entrepreneurs? A Systematic Investigation of Childhood Adversity, Resilience and Entrepreneurs’ Career Success
Field: Entrepreneurship
13 Nov 2019
Wednesday
Cristiano Bellavitis
The University of Auckland
Untitled
Field: Entrepreneurial finance
30 Oct 2019
Wednesday
Mike Mai
NUS Business School
When does gender matter for creativity in groups? Examining the interactive effect of gender composition and perspective variety on group creativity
Field: Organizational Behavior
9 Oct 2019
Wednesday
Ralf van der Lans
HKUST
Seeding of Viral Marketing Campaigns in Social Networks
Field: Marketing
2 Oct 2019
Wednesday
James Yetman
CIS
Contagion Risk Among Big Global Banks
Field: Finance
25 Sept 2019
Wednesday
Alessandro Fergnani
NUS Business School
Corporate Foresight: A New Frontier for Strategy and Managment
Field:Future studies
18 Sept 2019
Wednesday
Jeremy Goh
Singapore Management University
Corporate Governance and Bond Evaluation
Field: Finance
11 April 2019
Thursday
Tuan Phan
Associate Professor,
NUS, Singapore
Shopping or Dining? Analyzing User Behavior due to Flight Delays
Flight delays are costly to passengers, the air travel industry, businesses, and the overall economy. Yet, there is little empirical evidence on how passengers behave and spend their time as a result of given time due to schedule disruptions. In this study, we use a large proprietary dataset on passengers’ indoor movements from a major airport and publicly available flight delay data to study how flyers spend their time due to flight delays.
moreFurthermore, we find that passengers at lower rated airlines are more likely to spend time at dining establishment. Our findings can aid airlines and airports to better manage passengers satisfaction due to service disruptions.
27 March 2019
Wednesday
Anella Munro
Senior Advisor,
Reserve Bank of New Zeland, New Zealand
A Prudential Stable Funding Requirement and Monetary Policy, in a Small Open Economy
Post crisis, we have introduced regulation to make the financial system safer. Do these regulations prevent the build-up of risk or shift the point of risk? How do they interact with monetary policy? This presentation looks at the stable funding requirement (SFR), part of the Basel III liquidity regulation that came into effect in 2018, and part of the liquidity policy introduced in New Zealand, in 2010.
The second part of the presentation considers broader implications of the paper, and challenges for financial stability policy, including the risk that unstable funding has just changed its name.
20 March 2019
Wednesday
Asad Ata
Associate Professor,
MISI, Malaysia
Sustainability for Certification or Certification for Sustainability: The Palm Oil Paradox
Field: Sustainability
With local and international pressures, there is race towards benchmarking palm oil against local and global sustainability standards. Amidst record-low prices and restrictive export criteria how does it affect the Independent Small Holder farmer for Oil Palm contributing most upstream in the palm oil supply chain? The risk of being the first one to be culled out in the name of sustainability is real. How do we enable ethical and responsible sourcing while safeguarding the interest of some of the many small players in the supply chain who may live day to day on a mere subsistence level and are furthest away from any endorsement to sustainability.
moreDr. Ata has been working with the small farmers in state of Johor in Malaysia for the past 5 years where their concentration is the highest and the land size very small. Dr. Ata’s talk will be about – how do we translate global commitments to sustainability through successful supply chain engagement into true partnerships and meaningful collaboration across stakeholders.
13 March 2019
Wednesday
Andrew Coleman
Senior Lecturer,
University of Otago, New Zealand Productivity Commission, and New Zealand Treasury, New Zealand
When I’m 64, am I an age apart
Field: Macroeconomics
WHEN I’M 64:WHAT DO NEW ZEALANDERS WANT IN A RETIREMENT INCOME POLICY?
In this paper we describe how multi-criteria decision analysis was used to investigate the preferences of a nationally representative sample of New Zealanders with respect to retirement income policies. Using the estimates of individual preferences over seven different aspects of retirement income policy, we find that a policy which raises taxes to prefund the government retirement income scheme is supported by a majority of people of all ages and income groups. Our results suggest that multi-criteria decision has considerable potential in helping policy makers identify and develop policies that are aligned with people’s preferences.
moreThere is growing evidence of a disconnect between the preferences of the general public and those of policy making ‘elites’. This paper uses a new technique based on multiple-criteria decision-making surveys to compare the range of preferences held by the general public and the staff of a major New Zealand government policy-making agency to ascertain the extent the preferences of the staff members systematically differ from those of the general public. The survey concerns the
relative importance of seven aspects of retirement income policy. We show a large proportion of the agency’s staff held minority viewpoints, and few had preferences similar to those held by the largest public subgroups. By identifying these differences, management of a policy-making organisation can ensure the diversity of views held by the public are not ignored simply because the views of the organisation’s staff are insufficiently diverse.
11 March 2019
Monday
Maria Teresa Punzi
Assistant Professor,
Webster University Vienna, Austria
Environmental Risk and Financial Stability
Field: Macroeconomics
This project connects environmental problems with fields of economics and finance, by highlighting how climate change policy affects the economy through the banking channel. Financial instability arises from: (i) environmental policy affects entrepreneurs’ profitability and firms’ liquidity; (ii) banks price climate change risk by charging higher lending rates.
moreCentral banks and financial regulators can play an active role in promoting investment, while maintaining their mandate of stable inflation and financial stability.
14 February 2019
Thursday
Anurag Singh
PhD Candidate,
Columbia University, USA
Clustered Sovereign Defaults
Field: Macroeconomics and international trade
Clustered sovereign defaults, where multiple countries default in a relatively short period of time, is a recurring phenomenon, yet there is a lack of quantitative models designed to study them. This paper builds a quantitative framework to study clustered defaults, and investigates the nature of shocks and the mechanism through which these shocks lead countries to clustered defaults. The paper begins with a joint estimation of structural parameters that drive the output process of 24 countries and a process for the world interest rate.
more13 February 2019
Wednesday
Gabriele Ciminelli
Projects Officer,
IMF, USA
Policy Guidance and the International Transmission of Macro News: Evidence from Investment Funds
Field: International finance, applied macroeconomics
Cross-border portfolio capital flows have been shown to depend, in part, on risk perceptions and U.S. monetary policy. This paper contends that U.S. macroeconomic data releases are another important ‘global’ factor driving cross-border flows and that their effect depends on the guidance provided by the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed). I source data on allocations into investment funds and study the response of U.S. investors to domestic employment news, focusing on the period following the Great Financial Crisis.
more8 February 2019
Friday
Triwit Ariyathugun
PhD Candidate,
University of Chicago, USA
Asset Pricing Implications of the Interest on Reserves Policy
Field: Macroeconomics
Since October 2008, the Federal Reserve System began paying interest on reserves balances held by financial institutions. My work examines the effects of this monetary policy on asset prices and macroeconomic outcomes. To do so, I develop a dynamic heterogeneous-agent asset pricing model in which banks take leverage by borrowing from households. Banks have a choice of depositing reserves with the government. The government collects taxes from households to pay the interest on reserves. This policy reduces banks’ risk-taking, interpretable as less risky lending made to the real economy. Banks’ net worth becomes less volatile.
more23 Jan 2019
Wednesday
Prasanna Karhade
Assistant Professor,
The University of Hong Kong, SAR Hong Kong China
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Multi-Level Theory for Restaurant Participation on Food Delivery Platforms in India
Field: Macroeconomics
Food delivery platforms are a source of great value and are promising to grow dramatically in the next few years. Given the tremendous growth potential in food delivery platforms in India, platform providers need to understand the factors that restaurants consider before participating on platforms. We draw on multiple theoretical perspectives to model restaurant’s decision to participate on food delivery platforms.
more17 Jan 2019
Thursday
Hans Genberg
Executive Director,
The SEACEN center, Malaysia
Monetary Policy Dilemmas in Emerging Markets
Field: Macroeconomics
Following the two decades of steady non-inflationary economic expansion during the Great Moderation, inflation targeting and a freely floating exchange rate was declared ‘international best practice’ in monetary policy. Many central banks, particularly in advanced economies, adopted it as their strategy. In addition, the prevailing view among a majority of academics and central bankers was that sharp movements in asset prices and financial imbalances should not influence central bank policy.
more– Do central banks have enough policy instruments to deal with a multitude of objectives?
– Are these instruments effective in the context of increasing integration of international financial markets?
– How can we ensure that policies to achieve multiple objectives to not end up operating at cross-purposes?
– Should central banks use the policy interest rate to deal with financial imbalances in the economy?
– Should central banks lean against changes in exchange rates?
– Is there a role for capital controls as a policy tool?
– Is there a risk of overburdening the central bank with too many objectives? Should some have precedence over others?
These are all questions that central banks, particularly in emerging markets, are struggling to find answers to. The presentation will discuss them both from a conceptual perspective and with reference to actual practice in some South-East Asian central banks.