wandering the wide world in search of wonders
(Sheung Wan, Hong Kong island) Names matter.
Those of my readers from Singapore or familiar with its customs should be aware of a particular social institution known as, among other similar names, the ‘government scholarship’. However, this term is highly misleading, not only to foreign observers but also many Singaporeans, as the institution has only a passing resemblance to what the rest of the world understands the term ‘scholarship’ to mean. Here I propose a different name.
Posted in Education, Singapore.
– August 12, 2009
(Taipei) Competition is a necessary but sometimes insufficient condition for quality.
Two years ago around this time, shortly after my stint at a DC think-tank and a public policy summer camp, I wrote my first op-ed on higher education subsidies in Singapore, and it got some attention from legislators and published in the state media.
The subsidy, the Tuition Grant Scheme administered by the education ministry, is not means-tested and subsidy amounts depend on the specific university and field of study, and is fairly substantial – as much as 75% of full tuition. It is also tied not to citizenship or residency (as is common elsewhere) but to attendance at certain schools in Singapore, namely the local public universities and the vocational and trade schools (the polytechnics and other diploma providers). I use the term public because all of them also receive operating subsidies via the education ministry. Anyone who attends these schools is eligible for the subsidy – rich or poor, citizen or foreign national – but these schools only. I am primarily concerned with its provision at the undergraduate level though in principle my arguments extend also to the vocational and trade schools.*
Posted in Economics, Education, Essays & Writing, Singapore.
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– July 22, 2009
(Hong Kong tutoring agency ad) No tutors can compensate for a lack of personal motivation.
My little cousin recently received her O-level grades, which were disappointing to say the least. I wasn’t close to her, but I did try my best to make a difference: I emphasized the importance of attending a good JC and getting grades at least good enough to ensure admission to the highly subsidized local universities, if not secure a taxpayer-funded ride to the Ivy schools. I even gave her my extensive collection of college admissions guides – yes, I was that insane about it.
Posted in Bildungsroman, Education, Singapore.
– January 22, 2009
(Sun Yat-Sen memorial – Zhongshan, Guangdong) Searching for my heritage… Trans: All that is under heaven belongs to the people.
While in Singapore I had the chance to visit my grandmothers, who I hadn’t seen for a long while. It was during my study of modern Chinese history last year that I realized I knew very little about my grandparents’ past. There is so much of local history that I never learned, because I had opted for a more Western-centric curriculum during A-levels. I suppose I had been more interested in the future back then, but it was partly due to the generational language barrier. After a summer in China my Mandarin has much improved, though not as much as I would have liked it to, but sufficient for most purposes. So I decided to ask about their past.
– January 18, 2009
(Hong Kong new territories) HDBs are actually pretty nice in comparison.
While in Singapore, I met a friend (local grad) who had recently got a job at a bank, which is quite impressive in this economic climate. However, she does not like it very much, and is looking for a better one – good luck. When I asked her why, she gave me this analogy: “IBD is Orchard Road, PWM is Bukit Timah, and retail banking is HDB.” I guess the prestige-consciousness and status hierarchy of the financial industry has been localized, though I suppose PE isn’t on the radar yet.
Posted in Business, Singapore.
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– January 15, 2009
(Asakusa, Tokyo)
I remember the taste of her specialty chicken curry, its rich coconut cream and spices that soak into the thick slices of bread. She would bring bowls of it to me, and Yeo’s drinks, before slipping a red packet into my hands while encouraging me to study hard. I only saw grandaunt once a year, because it was our tradition to visit them on the first day of the lunar new year. I remember the walk up to their three-room flat in an old housing estate, back when it had not been redeveloped yet. Those childhood memories are hazy, but I remember how magical their aquarium seemed, with toys and figures perched around the pond. They said it was good fengshui.
Posted in Singapore.
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– March 3, 2008
Although my op-ed has finally been published in the Straits Times review section as a joint submission, I can’t help but feel a little upset that they rejected my original piece but took this one when the only differences are that 1) it is less critical of the state and 2) more conversational.
Posted in Economics, Education, Essays & Writing, Politics, Singapore.
– October 9, 2007
When Atlas Shrugs
On my way to sit in Parliament with David, I took the bus past a local university and saw this billboard, and realized how tragic it is that one of the most fundamental and most precious of civil liberties has been reduced to a marketing gimmick for mobile phones, most ironically, by a telecom firm owned by those who deny it. Perhaps it was most tragic that none of the students there would appreciate the horrible irony.
Posted in Singapore.
– June 11, 2007
After escaping the office on Friday I made my way down to the airport to pick up Nara-noona (from my APEC YP team) from Terminal 1. We walked around a bit at Bugis, where I took her on a short detour to the Central Library and got myself a yellowed copy of The Book of the New Sun: Sword and Citadel. Yes, I’m terrible at being a tour guide.
Posted in Singapore.
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– July 23, 2006
Tonight I attended the dinner at the annual CAP seminar. My initial reason to go was to see someone I hadn’t seen for a long time, but the person wasn’t there. Not all was lost: It was a reminder of everything that went wrong with my misspent youth, all the wasted opportunities and failures. I really wanted to be part of that happy family, but somehow it just didn’t happen. It reminded me why I have to work harder at making sure that never happens again.
Posted in Bildungsroman, Singapore.
– June 1, 2006
The good (?) news is that Geoffrey and I won third place in the university category for the MAS competition for our paper on currency liberalization. The first and second places went to an MAS local scholar and a pair of postgrads (NUS MSc and NTU doctoral), so I think we did fairly well considering we’re both prefrosh. However, the relevant benchmark is Judith who did the same thing, except she won second place and did it at 19 – we should have done so much better. I feel like I’ve let both of us down.
Posted in Economics, Essays & Writing, Singapore.
– May 27, 2006
The National University of Singapore’s undergraduate business program (Bizad) is pursuing an aggressive advertising campaign. The first one I saw was the designer-jeans metaphor. The second was about A-level results – the message is that bizad is the school of choice for the very best. The third is about a foreign student who picks bizad over wharton/sloan (suspension of disbelief aside, note the small envelopes, and you know what that implies…)
Posted in Business, Education, Singapore.
– May 25, 2006
Context: In Singapore, ’scholarships’ are contracts offered by various public sector agencies (and some private firms) to sponsor tertiary education that come with (generally six-year) employment obligations. This is probably rather different from the traditional meaning of the term, which refers to the academic quality of a ’scholarly’ individual, or the sponsorship of such an individual. As such, they are not primarily ‘need-based’ or redistributory as per most sponsored tertiary education programs, but employment-centric.
The A-level results are to be released later this afternoon today. I remember the day I got my results – and how all our result slips came with a ‘goodie-bag’ package of scholarship material. Today’s Straits Times came with their Scholars’ Choice special, in which the state agencies take out full page advertisements, and have their scholars interviewed. These ads and interviews also appear in local magazine Career Central. Within the school term there was also a significant emphasis on scholarships, particularly in celebrating those who obtained them. Perhaps it may be useful to take an objective look at scholarships and whether the attention they command in Singapore is warranted.
The value of a scholarship can be derived from the sponsorship amount (tuition fees, expenses etc) and the projected income over the duration of the contract. Then we discount and adjust for (dis)utility to get the present value. Let’s call this value X.
The opportunity cost of X is the next best alternative foregone i.e. not taking up the scholarship, paying for college and working somewhere(s) for the equivalent time frame. The value of this is derived from the projected income, discounted for risk etc to get the present value. Let’s call this value Y.
In an efficient labor market, X and Y must converge and equate. If X is greater than Y i.e. the scholar is ‘overvalued’, the incentive for the sponsor is to reduce income to match productivity/value levels or increase effort/disutility – after all the scholar is ‘captive’. If Y is greater than X i.e. the scholar is ‘undervalued’, then a rational individual would go do something else. An efficient labor market would result in an equilibrium where scholars are correctly matched according to their value.
Of course markets are not fully efficient, and everyone seems to think they can arbitrage between X and Y and come out on top. However, this usually suffers from overvaluation of X and undervaluation of Y. Anecdotal evidence suggests that most scholars would do a lot better elsewhere. Why? More on this later.
Posted in Economics, Education, Singapore.
– March 1, 2006
This started as a little thought exercise on the bus ride home.
Beginning with the premises that conscription is just as a civic responsibility in support of the order that protects civil rights, and that all citizens enjoy equal rights, it follows that conscription must be universal and equal in order to be just. Equal sacrifice for equal rights. Call it the law of equivalent exchange, if you will. (apologies to Fullmetal Alchemist/Hagane no Renkinjutsushi)
In the real world we often diverge from this ideal form, as conscription is almost never strictly universal systemically (lotteries, male-only, exemptions, deferrals etc). But in many cases it is inclusive enough to approximate universality. How about equality then?
Most conscription systems draft citizens for specific durations – the time served by all citizens is generally equal. However, time is a tricky measure of sacrifice… An objective valuation of productivity (however quantified, opportunity cost or ‘defence value’ etc) differentials would conclude that the value of the time differs. For the same amount of time, high-productivity individuals contribute far more than low-productivity individuals, and conscription in this sense is productivity-inequitable. It is a progressive ‘tax-incidence’ on productivity, with the incentive effects that a progressive incidence causes. If productivity is endogenously determined by innate capacity and discretionary effort, disincentives to possessing high productivity would lead high capacity individuals to either opt out or reduce discretionary effort. It would be either a brain-drain or a race to the bottom, both suboptimal outcomes.
(This assumes that productivity valuation is conceptually sound – I suspect that efforts to value opportunity cost would not only have to include the market value of civilian income foregone but also the discounted returns on human capital investment foregone and other such projections of counterfactuals. If we are to ignore conventional accounting of opportunity cost for a specific value to defence efforts, then we have the pricing problem. This also assumes that valuation is practically possible – informational asymmetries are huge and the closest indicators of market value like income statements are poor proxies)
However, what if conscription was value-equitable? Instead of an equal duration of service, citizens must contribute a flat rate of X value. High productivity individuals who contribute more value thus serve a shorter period of time. Disincentives are flipped: Discretionary effort and productivity will increase. Valuation in terms of market value would help retain high capacity individuals, and raise standards all around. Valuations in terms of ‘defence’ value, depending on how prices are derived, would incentivize individuals to become better soldiers and take on greater responsibilities. In other words, there are potentially significant gains from liberalizing conscription towards a more market-based system of value-equitability.
[Edit] Just to reply to some comments on the post. Caveats – its a model of human behavior, and the model like any other model is abstracted and simplified for discursive purposes. So you’re right, there is a lot of subjectivity in value, there are multiple incentives and disincentives at work (and the net effect will differ), people aren’t hyperrational, there are other relevant concerns, the model does not explicitly factor in training time. Agreed that I’ve conflated consistency with ideals and system efficiency, two separate issues. Admittedly this wasn’t rigorously thought through – its a blog post and part of a evolving process.
I think the main point is that if differentials exist in productivity (regardless of how it is objectively derived and regardless of distinctions between ‘military’ and ‘civilian’ forms) but are not accounted for, equity is not achieved. Also, (dis)incentives come into play, and on net the system will trend towards a certain outcome.
Posted in Conscription, Economics, Singapore.
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– February 17, 2006
Unfortunately, this few weeks has been rather busy and will continue to be for the weeks ahead as I rush to arrange some sort of post-freedom unpaid employment experience and fulfill some precommitments. As it is I will not be able to do justice to the proper posts I want to write on:
- Conscription as regressive taxation, and gender market distortion
- What factors affect Chinese New Year red packet amounts?
And no less important:
- Hana Yori Dango (the hit j-drama of yesteryear)
- Nobuta wo Produce (the other hit j-drama… Nobuta Power!!! *twist*)
- MiSa (which I just finished)
- Goong (which I’ve just started on)
Look forward to it!
Ja.
Posted in Singapore.
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– January 27, 2006
I attended Claire’s recital at the Esplanade library today with the CAPper kids – ran into dominic soon there too – and I realized that she’s living the dream. The dream of freedom from the usual JC/A-levels ordeal, freedom from the whole wharton running of the bulls preprofessional rush (though she goes to hopkins, arguably prepro in a different way). Doing what she wants to do rather than trying to rationalize what must be done.
Of course she’s very good, that goes without saying. I’ve heard all her songs before on her CD, and it seemed about the same listening to her live at the open mic. Whether in Baltimore or here, she’s so much further away and further on in life than I am. I wish I had her courage to dream and live it.
On another note, I’ve finished reading the first Book of the New Sun, and am looking for the second. I’ll reserve my review until I’ve read that, but I think what makes Gene Wolfe’s tetralogy truly groundbreaking for SF (it’s an SF novel disguised as fantasy) is how he constantly toys with reader expectations on the genre and makes us reassess and carefully scrutinize every nuance and detail. I’ve started on Monkey Business and Confessions of an Economic Hitman, both for my current internship quest.
Posted in Singapore.
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– January 21, 2006
My own alma mater, Anglo-Chinese Junior College, has a twenty-year-plus tradition called ‘fun-o-rama’, a biennial school carnival, the proceeds of which go into the school’s building expansion fund. I participated in this carnival in my own time at the school, manning my class’s stalls, and selling coupons. At the time, it was an enjoyable experience, and I have (mostly) fond memories of it.
Perhaps in light of ACS’s present circumstances, it is time for a more objective look at this school tradition.
Proponents of maintaining the ‘fun-o-rama’ tradition usually conflate two separate issues: the carnival as a source of revenue, and the carnival as a social-cohesion activity. The carnival is meant to generate revenue for its expansion, and to provide a shared experience that bonds students. Other reasons cited are developing entrepreneural skills but I will not address those here.
As a source of revenue, the carnival is highly inefficient. Many of the coupons are purchased by the students themselves and their immediate family and friends (which often belong to the same extended ACS old boys network). The goods and services in the carnival are provided by the students and paid for out of their pockets (or their families’ or friends’ or in-kind donations), which are then purchased by coupons. The result is a complicated series of transactions between closely related agents that tends to hide its effects – a regressive incidence that falls heavily on students and their families, with large overheads and expenses. Unlike a donation drive, this process loses much of the potential revenue in conversions, which is a highly inefficient way to transfer funds from students to the school. Some people might argue that the process itself ‘creates demand’ (or supply, depending how you look at it) like Say’s Law – the question then is whether the demand generates more revenue than the process loses through inefficiencies. My guess is that it does not. Alternative revenue streams might include soliciting direct and corporate donations.
I won’t even talk about opportunity cost here.
The second issue of cohesion is vitally important, as much of ACS’s appeal is to a sense of identification with the school even decades after graduation. The Ivy League schools amass huge alumni donation rates because of this brand identification. This is partly material (networking benefits, alumni connections, some prestige that comes with association) and partly sentimental. Fun-o-rama is a powerful experience – yet many of the ways it functions is detrimental to this purpose. Purchasing (and selling) coupons is often coercive rather than voluntary, often playing on tunes of guilt and duty. Students, family, friends, and alums are all subjected to an increasingly hard-sell campaign. This tends to drain rather than build goodwill.
The problem is that many people can identify these problems but tend to conflate the two issues. They rationalize the inefficient revenue process with the community goodwill it (supposedly) generates, or they rationalize its coercive nature with the need to generate revenue (however inefficiently). My answer is to delink these two purposes – Fun-o-rama must reform itself into a purely cohesive activity (its core compentency) and forget profit (which it was never suited for). This will allow carnival organizers to relax and focus on creating a great (and completely voluntary) experience that students will remember.
However, I fear that ACS’s culture will make reform unlikely. The hard-sell nature of fun-o-rama comes from a hard-sell of all ACS paraphenalia – I’ve bought all kinds of ACS pins, mugs, bears, tickets, coupons etc. We have reached a point where overloading alums will have negative returns. Yet we never seem to learn.
I will write more on alternative revenue streams for ACS in the future.
Posted in Education, Singapore.
– January 8, 2006
In a conversation with Palinurus and Oikono over dinner, I mentioned that the recent controversy over Melvyn Tan, the draft-dodging pianist, tended to conflate separate issues and resulted in an unlikely public consensus. Palinurus suggested that a similar process was at work in the public outcry over the other recent controversy over the hanging of Australian drug mule Nguyen Tuong Van. The issues:
1. Should Melvyn Tan be punished in an equal fashion as any other draft dodger in Singapore, regardless of his individual achievements and international standing?
1b. OR, if Melvyn Tan was indeed equally punished, is the sentence for this crime too light?
1c. AND, why is there not enough public condemnation of the man?
2. Should Melvyn Tan be punished for draft dodging at all, when he has renounced citizenship, not lived in Singapore since the age of 12 and never returned since (until now)?
3. Should draft dodgers be punished in this fashion at all, and is our system of conscription just?
There is a huge public outcry in the media over first issue, about the perceived special treatment of elites, which Palinurus half-jokingly suggested might be due to egalitarian-fetishist hatred of elites/fear of genius and a celebration of mediocrity mentality. Or, a vindictive desire that others must suffer as much as they have. Regardless of the non-rational/emotional nature of this issue, the other issues of whether Melvyn should be tried for this particular crime, given his somewhat extenuating circumstances, and of the catch-22 nature of citizenship/conscription in Singapore, only tend to come up in discussions on Young Republic or in camp.
What happens then is that people conflate the issues and the answer for one overrides the answers for others. They conflate justice with consistency in punishment and perversely, end up advocating equal injustice. The media frames the first issue and people naturally say ‘yes’, but frame the other issues and the answer becomes ‘maybe’ or ‘no’ – but nobody sees the separate issues.
1. Should Nguyen Tuong Van be sentenced and hanged in a manner consistent with Singapore law?
1b. regardless of his extenuating circumstances?
1c. regardless of the appeals of the international community?
2. Is the death penalty for capital crimes justifiable?
3. If so, does drug trafficking constitute a capital crime? OR, is our mandatory death penalty for drug trafficking policy just?
The first issue is about the rule of law and consistency, and to a certain extent, some nationalist sentiment over sovereignty. The public tends to agree with the government’s position on consistent sentencing and independence from foreign pressure, but doesn’t consider whether the sentence in question is just. The second issue is a perennial debate, and the third issue based on a particular position on the second. The process of conflating issues and selective framing is similar. Personally, I’m torn between being consistent with libertarian positions, and a pragmatist ‘public-choice school’ position on the second and third issues – which makes the whole business uncertain, and I wonder if my certainty over the first issue is warranted.
On another note, things like this putative boycott of Singapore goods and services, and this denial of service, seem counterproductive and plain dumb. It’s like they never learn from history, and it doesn’t help change public sentiment here either.
Posted in Conscription, Singapore.
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– December 4, 2005
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Or is it? Rand didn’t think so. Libertarians in general insist on consistency to principles.
Now, Chris makes an observation about Melvyn Tan, the draft-dodging pianist who comes back a national hero:
Our entire legal system is based not on mercy, but on a strict conception of justice. But, when a Singaporean judge allows a person like Mr Tan to slip through the cracks because you want to show mercy, a most un-Singaporean virtue, you break that strict conception of justice. By failing to punish this law-breaker, you will encourage many more.
Mr Tan’s case will set a legal precedent: Future draft-dodgers may return to Singapore unscathed, provided they become rich and famous. And if you happen to be able to play a musical instrument as well as Mr Tan, then you need not do NS, because you’ve already “done your duty”.
At first, I wondered if Chris had turned into one of those people I swore I would never become – someone who would defend conscription, having served through it and not wanting to devalue his legitimate-or-otherwise sacrifice (and there are quite a few around, just read some of the Young Republic posts on conscription). A fallacy of sunk costs undermining personal integrity. The same way that some officers and specialists rationalize punishing their subordinates in a perverse sense of ‘tradition’ – buying into the very system they suffered under.
After all, if you read the rest of Chris’ posts and mine, you would know that he and I generally concur that conscription in Singapore is unjust. One would expect us to celebrate the flexibility of the government in considering his service to the nation, in welcoming the market principles of specialization that let Melvyn Tan contribute where he can contribute best. One would expect us to respect a man who could stick to his principles and exercise labor mobility, paying the costs of draft dodging – exile to a foreign land. One would expect us to see this as an incremental step towards the dissolving of a system we hate. One would expect us to be happy. All these would be consistent.
Yet his response is also consistent with our position (at least my position) that conscription is just in principle, but often lacking in its practice. We accept conscription as a necessary evil, a civic responsibility that pays for our civil rights, and we look back to Athenian democracy and citizen soldiering as a model. At the same time, we look at the practice of the modern draft, and the nature of military organizations and the state, and see plenty of injustice. We want our conscription to meet the ideals of universality, minimality, transparency etc – in this perspective, it is not inconsistent for us to demand system integrity in universal conscription, that Melvyn Tan must be punished the same way any draft dodger would – that we make equal sacrifices for equal rights.
So I wonder which is more consistent as a libertarian.
Posted in Conscription, Singapore.
– November 22, 2005
Economic theory posits that education is more than simply increasing productivity (through knowledge/skill gains) – it is also about signalling and screening. A highly selective admission/graduation process, or the act of self-selection in opting for a competitive school, sends signals to others with asymmetric information (ie employers) about the candidate’s value. This helps them screen candidates and reduce the decision space. The perennial question about elite schools is how much of the candidate’s value is through the education or innate (ie selected) – an NBER paper ‘Estimating the Payoff to Attending a More Selective College: An Application of Selection on Observables and Unobservables’ finds:
We find that students who attended more selective colleges do not earn more than other students who were accepted and rejected by comparable schools but attended less selective colleges. However, the average tuition charged by the school is significantly related to the students’ subsequent earnings. Indeed, we find a substantial internal rate of return from attending a more costly college. Lastly, the payoff to attending an elite college appears to be greater for students from more disadvantaged family backgrounds.
Swarthmore Associate Professor of History Tim Burke writes:
For another, the more highly selective a college or university is in its admission policies, the more useful it is for an employer as a device for identifying potentially valuable employees, even if the employer doesn’t know or care what happened to the potential employee while he or she was a student. If so, this has bad implications for expensive noncompetitive lower-tier private colleges, possibly, but since they’ve long since been the most economically tenuous part of the higher education sector, that’s not news.
What does this mean for ACS, which has recently set up its ‘international’ school, Anglo-Chinese School (International)? As a new institution, the quality of the education is yet to be determined, though we will soon be able to make projections on this. However, where screening and signalling is concerned.. Anecdotal evidence (from friends who have been involved with the school recently) suggests that admissions is not academically rigorous. The primary screening mechanism is the tuition fee, which is high relative to heavily subsidized public school fees, but more or less comparable with the private schools. This means that the primary signal about their students is one of privilege. That might be important for clients who want their children to associate with the ‘right sort of people’ (whatever that means) but it seems like the wrong brand strategy to me, if clients are interested in say, increasing productivity or getting into a competitive university.
What worries me more is that, in this niche of the education industry, price is being taken as an indicator of value – a giffen good – which tends to create a vicious cycle of increasing prices and perceived value, which is almost always artificial. Perhaps the heavy subsidies on public school tuition have distorted the market and my perceptions of what a fair price is for a privately run, highly efficient education provider (ACS Independent, maybe?), but I can’t help but see the price tags as some sort of educational arms race in a prisoner’s dilemma for schools.
The answer for ACS (International) is to adjust its entrance signal from mere privilege to include academic rigor and potential – but that is what ACS (Independent) already does and would be redundant/inefficient. If we believe that privilege is precisely what the ‘international’ school seeks to signal, then I wonder how this fits in the overall strategy for ACS as a whole.
Posted in Economics, Education, Singapore.
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– November 1, 2005
Full disclosure – both writers of this blog are third/fourth-generation ACS alumni, with complete ACS educations.
Malcolm Gladwell would call it a ‘tipping point’ - the Anglo-Chinese School (Independent)’s recent decision to go co-ed. The school’s motto was that every student should be ‘a scholar, an officer, and a gentleman’. Now it will be something like ‘a scholar, a leader, and a global citizen’. Not quite the same ring to it.
There are many reasons why such a move is ill-conceived, some to do with pedagogy, and some to do with strategy. I believe this model, while to be lauded for its inclusivity, is one that is inefficient in terms of specialization and division of labor. The ACS family of schools (which is inclusive of the other Methodist schools) offer a broad range of differentiated products and specialize in different levels of education. Leveraging on economies of scale, coordinating and cooperating in the market can create value and strengthen institutional position. Instead, the school has chosen multiple redundancy.
This decision is only symptomatic of a larger trend in ACS, which I will write more of soon.
Posted in Education, Singapore.
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– October 30, 2005
Cynical as I am of political office in Singapore, it is instinctively appealing to hear of challengers to the status quo. Paranoid conspiracy theorists may pass it off as overhyped if not artificial competition to divert the needs of the masses for political expression in perpetuating a facade of liberal democracy, but nobody really believes that bread and circuses line anymore. Rather, one could see it as a marginal revolution of sorts, small steps towards liberty. In any case, it is an interesting look into the electoral process.
First, the eligibility conditions to even run. Unlike the US, where any natural-born citizen of 35 years of age residing in the US for 14 years can run for the presidency (and with the Governator’s entrance, even the natural-born bit is up for debate), eligibility here is a bit more stringent, and worryingly, at the discretion of three men and their interpretation of the constitution. “Integrity, good character or reputation” are rather subjective, though it appears the issue at hand is whether or not Andrew Kuan’s CFO position at JTC counts. If it is not, either the large discretionary powers or the absurdity of present eligibility requirements will become obvious – so it’s a good bet that he will be eligible to run. Speaking of betting, I don’t think the local gaming industry will cover this as much as Tradesports since AFAIK they don’t have futures markets or contract payoffs.
Second, the timeframe is rather abrupt, particularly for the unknown contenders. From nomination day to polling is 10 days – 240 hours for candidates to campaign and make themselves known, for a nation to decide on a president. This, of course, adds another advantage to an incumbent above and beyond the advantages of incumbency. Ideally there would be a level playing field for a nation to obtain sufficient information to make an optimal decision. Instead, we have asymmetric information. For markets to be as efficient as possible, this asymmetry should be ameliorated.
Third, this is going to be the first election most Singaporeans will have voted in a long time – most districts during parliamentary elections are not contested – and therefore potentially more representative.
Fourth, the candidates themselves are interesting. Andrew Kuan’s background is in industry, accounting, finance and HR – he’s not a bureaucrat but a businessman. This alone excites me. He has said: (quotes from the Straits Times)
‘I’m just a mere member of the PAP,’ he said of the ruling party. ‘But I’m not influenced by their philosophy. I’m going to quit it the moment I get my Certificate of Eligibility.’
One wonders what his interpretation of the PAP philosophy is – its stated non-ideological pragmatism or its authoritarian/market-socialist position. If the latter, its unclear whether he’s further to the left or to the right. In any case, it’s not likely that there will be much of a difference where ideology is concerned. Besides, elections are more about personality.
If Mr Kuan proves eligible, the Aug 27 poll will be the first time since 1993 that the presidency is contested. In 1993, retired accountant-general Chua Kim Yeow, who was persuaded by the Government to stand, ran unsuccessfully against Mr Ong Teng Cheong. So is Mr Kuan another ‘government-endorsed’ candidate?
‘No, absolutely no!’ said Mr Kuan firmly, adding later that he was running ‘independently’.
He added: ‘Singapore can progress to greater heights if we have proper governance and better performance governance for better transparency and better accountability.’
I like the transparency and accountability bit. Here’s hoping he makes the cut so we can hear more about his platform.
Posted in Singapore.
– August 6, 2005
This is the first post in a series called Conscription Delenda Est, a phrase that will end each and every one in it. Unlike Cato the Elder, I will not end all my speeches regardless of subject with it, though sometimes I think that would be necessary in these times.
After a difficult day fighting bureaucratic inertia, incompetence, ingratitude and military malice, it becomes even harder to take what little pride there is in communitarian servitude. How pleasing then to come home to read on Tacitus about Russell Kirk on the draft:
The claims of enthusiasts for conscription are numerous. They may be consolidated under three heads: conscription builds character, it improves health, it educates youth to play its part in the world. The writer, who has been on the inside of conscription looking out, has not found himself ennobled, strengthened, or educated thereby.
It has always irked me whenever someone attempts to identify the positive aspects of my condition as such, regardless of how good their intentions are. Because it obfuscates the main purpose of conscription, it conflates the military argument with the social and thus perpetuates a lack of critical thought on the former.
Yet what is truly irrational about this line of argument is its omission of comparison to the next best alternative ie opportunity cost. A statement that conscription has been beneficial because I am now ‘more mature’ lacks a comparison to how mature I might have become in any other context, not to mention its weak causal link. Nor whether I have actually become more mature given the particularly perverse incentives in military life towards evading responsibility, punishment of independent thought and action, and lack of autonomy. Conscription delenda est.
Posted in Conscription, Singapore.
– August 4, 2005
Some excerpts from the Straits Times (subscription required):
Aug 1, 2005
Can too much cheap foreign labour crimp wages?
One don says yes but another says heavier global competition is the true causeProfessor Lim Chong Yah, NTU’s Albert Winsemius Professor of Economics, started the debate rolling last Tuesday on the sidelines of a conference, when he cautioned against a ‘too free flow’ of cheap foreign labour.
However, Associate Professor Shandre M. Thangavelu of NUS disagreed.
He argued that annual wage increases for rank and file workers ranged from 6 to 10 per cent from 1990 to 1996 – a period of high foreign manpower growth.
In contrast, total wages for private-sector workers last year rose 3.6 per cent.
He also cited a study which found that ‘foreign workers also strongly complement the employment of local workers if we consider the overall economy’.
The influx of foreign labour is not the primary factor depressing local wages, he asserted, add- ing that the current wage stagnation is a global phenomenon.
In my post yesterday I wrote that economists should be concerned with the positive/objective/empirical, and that my disagreement from Prof Lim was on the normative implications of his statement. It appears that AP Shandre takes issue with its positive assertions. While I haven’t crunched the numbers myself, I am inclined to agree, conceding that this is probably the more constructive approach to a resolution – between a question of causality and differences in philosophy. Yet it also distresses me that such an approach implicitly accepts and legitimizes Prof Lim’s socialist position, framing the debate within the boundaries of left and center.
Posted in Economics, Singapore.
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– August 2, 2005
