I recently submitted my thesis to the political science department for honors consideration. I wrote about political competition in autocracies, using the natural or accidental deaths of dictators as natural experiments for succession conditions. My findings weren’t earth shattering – statistical significance is not practical/policy significance – but what I learned through the process was valuable.

1. Start early

I use the verb submitted rather than completed to stress how much of a work in progress it remains, but deadlines are deadlines. A substantial amount of the final text was written in the weeks before the deadline, because I spent most of the nine months of the thesis process in exploratory data analysis and figuring out what the specific question and approach were, and then performing original research, which takes a hell of a lot of time. Early drafts, written in the first half, were completely rewritten and most of the initial text never made it into the final version. The moral of the story is to start early.

You should start thinking about topics by junior fall, take a class or seminar on that topic with a potential advisor in the spring, treat the term paper as a thesis proposal, and use the summer for field research. Most grant applications for field research expenses are due halfway in spring semester, and it can take a while to arrange fieldwork (getting visas, vaccinated, plane tickets etc). Even if you don’t go to the field, it would be a lot better to have a proposal and advisor early on.

2. Pick a contemporary, policy-relevant topic

We were advised to choose a topic of personal interest, since if we didn’t, we would get sick of it quickly. I followed this advice and chose my pet topic, and found that after weeks and weeks of skipped meals and sleepless nights going through archive after archive (protip: pick a topic where there’s good available data in a readily accessible format instead of doing original research!), or running endless permutations of model specifications to get a good fit, I got sick of it anyway.

If you’re going to suffer you might as well suffer strategically, so my advice would be to pick something that has some practical significance, such as a popular contemporary issue, or a specific policy or treatment. This is a good example. Natural experiments are typically not manipulable and hence less policy relevant.

3. Use LaTeX from the beginning

I write up most math and stat assignments in LaTeX, as the math:prose ratio tends to be high, but I write most term papers in Word, since there are typically only one or two equations and tables. Although most theses will also have a low math:prose ratio, I found that I spent a lot of time on formatting, and I could have been more productive if I had invested more time early on automating things. I wrote my draft chapters in Word, and when I had the final draft ready and it was time to format everything, marking up 126 pages and converting all the footnotes into BibTeX was simply impossible. I should have started writing in LaTeX from the start.

LaTeX has a steep learning curve, but the more you use it the easier it becomes, and you can use an editor like LyX to ease the transition from Word. You can also export Stata and R output to LaTeX code, and export from Zotero to BibTeX.

4. Don’t write too much

126 pages is far too long for to comply with most journal submission requirements, which means I am faced with the horrible prospect of rewriting most of it. I’m not sure how it came to be this long – my initial drafts were criticized for terse brevity. To keep the end product short, shoot for something like 50-60 pages including figures, tables, appendices etc. Allocate pages to chapters and sections in an outline, and stick to those allocations when writing out individual sections, or reallocate pages between chapters while holding the total constant.

After having gone through the thesis writing experience, I would not recommend it for everyone, and if you do choose to write one, do it right from the start.

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.*

*While not too familiar with the vocational schools, I understand that the p.a. subsidy can be as much as 85% of full fees, though the shorter duration of vocational schooling means that the total subsidy per student is lower than in the universities. While the same arguments for means-testing apply, my guess is that with the income distribution in vocational schools almost all their students would be eligible for some level of means-tested subsidy.

What’s new?
Two years on, not much has changed. Subsidies have been extended to certain programs at one more school, UniSIM/SIM University, a continuing education provider, but the amounts are not as extensive (40%) and limited to the domestically accredited programs, arguably not their historical core competence.* More generally, residents and foreign nationals now receive a lower amount of subsidy though the amount is still fairly substantial.** While I am tempted to claim some credit for making this happen, subsidies are still not available for students who choose to study at any other university course in Singapore or elsewhere.

*UnISIM was previously the Singapore Institute of Management, primarily a local distributor of distance courses, first from the Open University and later a number of distance programs from the US/UK/AUS. The rebranded name reflects the wider breadth of programs on offer and also distinguishes the (now subsidized) domestic-accredited programs from the foreign-accredited distance courses. More about this later.

**Excluding residents and foreign nationals from subsidies was never my intent! My original op-ed makes that clear. Pointing out that they received subsidies too was merely to demonstrate how unfair the (not means-tested) policy was then, and still is now. I hope that the subsidies withdrawn from foreign nationals will be replaced with an equivalent amount of merit-based scholarships for them.

I proposed two changes in subsidy policy. First, to means-test the subsidy. Second, to make Singapore citizens eligible wherever they choose to enroll and whatever they choose to study. The two are closely related, because (I suspect) lower SES students are more likely to enroll in the less competitive local private schools and thus miss out on subsidies altogether.* But I will discuss the first component of my proposal, because it is the less contested one.

*My guess here is that lower SES students tend to pursue vocational schooling instead of the academic track (A-levels, then university), not because they don’t make the grade for the academic track (at least not only because), but as a choice to enter the workforce faster and with lower fees paid up front. Case 1: They then hit some kind of glass ceiling (real or perceived) on diploma holders sometime after entering the workforce, perhaps in the transition to managerial roles or in the kinds of professions and industries available. For example, the ceiling between paralegal and barrister/solicitor for those who took a legal studies diploma course. To attempt to break through the ceiling they opt for part-time continuing education, which until now wasn’t subsidized. Even now that it is (at UniSIM), the total costs incurred of vocational schooling and continuing education will be greater relative to the academic track. Case 2: If they anticipate this problem, vocational students will then opt to attend (the subsidized) local universities instead of entering the workforce directly, where they will enjoy advanced standing, but I haven’t seen detailed data on how many actually do so. My impression is that a good proportion of those who opt for this circuitous route will get crowded out by the academic track cohort, and go elsewhere (i.e. AUS) paying full fees. If either case is true, then our current subsidy policy is regressive.

Means-testing
A means-tested undergraduate tuition subsidy would give eligible students a subsidy whose amount would depend only on the individual’s financial need. It could range from a small discount to a full ride plus stipend. Let’s assume away the second part of my proposal, ie. assume that the status quo of preferential treatment for the local public universities prevails.

Apart from the local public universities, those whose interests are harmed by a means-tested tuition subsidy are those students with the means to pay. This is the Singapore upper-middle class and above. The median household earned income was 46320 SGD per annum in 2005. (Mean is 65400 SGD but median is more appropriate because of the fat tails in the distribution). I will demonstrate below that the full p.a. cost of undergraduate tuition is about 75% of this annual median income, so only upper-middle class and above households should be means-tested out.

How much does it cost to attend a local public university?
Let us first consider the cost to Singapore citizens, since they make up the majority of students at the local universities. Residents and foreign nationals pay 10% and 50% more respectively, and those of you interested can mentally adjust accordingly. I will focus on tuition fees at Singapore National. Comparable tuition fees at Nanyang Tech and Singapore Management are about the same.

The heavily subsidized tuition fees for most disciplines at NUS are fairly similar, the major outliers being medicine and dentistry*. It’s about 7K SGD p.a. or 15% of the median household income . But if we look at the full unsubsidized amounts, we see that engineering/science is more expensive, and so is music. There’s a lot of variation in the current subsidy amount based on discipline. For example, some taxpayers may wish to know why music is subsidized twice as much as law. But those questions are beyond the scope of my present inquiry.

*The unsubsidized fees for medicine and dentistry are 100K SGD p.a., for six and four years respectively, which probably reflect the cost of education and the earnings potential afterwards. Whether these fields deserve an additional subsidy over and above the means-tested grant is also beyond the scope of my present inquiry. It would depend on many things including labor force requirements in the healthcare sector, etc.

Excluding the outliers music, medicine and dentistry, we see that the unsubsidized tuition fees at NUS range from 26-33K SGD p.a.. There are some additional university-specific fees (NUS ‘modules’?) and I welcome comments on how much these amount to. Living expenses are harder to compute an average for since most Singapore citizens who attend local schools live at home, and this varies a lot from household to household.

How much does it cost to go elsewhere?
The appropriate comparison of costs when deciding whether or not to go overseas, is to compare total costs of attendance. However, since I can’t readily compute university-specific averages and living expenses when student live at home, here I compare tuition fees alone. Readers can make the mental adjustment to factor in other expenses, cost of living etc.

Australia. Undergraduate tuition fees at UNSW Sydney for foreign students in comparable disciplines range from 20-26k AUD = 23-30K SGD. Note that UNSW Asia charged 26-29K SGD p.a.
UK. Tuition fees at Cambridge for non-EU/UK nationals for non-clinical studies range from £10-13k = 23-30K SGD.
US. Undergraduate tuition at Harvard is $33,696 USD p.a. = 48546 SGD. (I assume that upper-middle class Singapore citizens will generally not qualify for financial aid).

Do note that living expenses can vary substantially, and that cost is not the only criteria relevant to decision-making (value is). I welcome comments from readers about whether the fees listed above are representative. Now that we know the cost of going elsewhere, what can we expect to happen if subsidies are means-tested?

Expected Effects
First consider those excluded by means-testing, the students who can afford to pay full fees. There are 3 possible categories thereof:

1. Those who choose to attend local universities. The money saved on subsidizing them goes to other uses, like improving our universities teaching, no-strings merit scholarships etc.
2. Those who choose to go elsewhere, because they do not consider local universities worth the full cost relative to alternative options.
3. Those who forego university altogether and opt for vocational education, direct entry to workforce, or NEET status.

Since I believe the 3rd group to be a null set, the 2nd group will determine the changes caused in enrolment in the local universities. How large it is will depend on the current income distribution in the local universities, and the perceived relative value of a local university education.

I welcome readers’ comments on the former. I suspect the majority of students at our local universities can afford full fees, since SES strongly correlates with academic achievement, but I haven’t found a breakdown of students at NUS/NTU/SMU by household income. That would be pretty interesting to see, especially a year-by-year breakdown by discipline. It would be really useful for estimating the causal impact of particular majors.

As for the latter, I can’t comment on since I don’t attend a local university, except to note that they will have to compete harder to attract and retain the 2nd group under means-testing, and that the incentive structure under competition tends to raise quality and customer satisfaction for everyone. With the caveat in the picture above.

As Charles Murray notes, assessing the value of a bachelor’s degree is pretty difficult. I would also like to see a greater focus on objective measures of quality of education (such as detailed career placement statistics) rather than the usual methodologically-murky international rankings. For example, Singapore Management could import another practice from their model school, the on-campus recruitment survey. We can’t improve quality without measuring it, and we need to measure the right thing. Competition only improves quality if customers can measure quality effectively, and fact is, a lot of parents and students out there are pretty clueless about the value of degrees. These academic ‘rankings’ are so irrelevant, whereas I think students will care more about future earnings projections. This is where the state can come in, in requiring all the schools that receive operating and tuition subsidies through the education ministry to comply with a simple transparency initiative to publish their placement records.

Why don’t we have a means-tested system yet?
Entrenched interests, policy inertia and upper-middle class sense of entitlement aside, means-testing is difficult to implement. As my friend Ringisei notes:

Household income. I suppose this will be income tax data but this is notoriously inaccurate as IRAS does not tax income accruing from foreign sources. This has applied very much to the business community here – those whose businesses extend beyond Singapore. And increasingly applies to many professionals who get posted to KL, Beijing/Shanghai, Jakarta, Bangkok etc and have their salaries paid out of there instead of Singapore. Which is why the government tends to prefer using the annual value of a person/household’s primary residence as the proxy measure of income/wealth – but that, as you well know, presents its own set of problems.

Difficult but not impossible. We already means-test healthcare, housing, and various cash handouts. No reason why we can’t means-test university tuition either.

Extending Subsidies
Let’s now consider the second component of my proposal, making the means-tested subsidy available to Singapore citizens wherever they choose to enroll and whatever they choose to study.

From the list of education providers in Singapore, you can tell that the vast majority ineligible for the subsidy are local distributors of foreign-accredited distance courses, much like UniSIM’s parent business model. Many of these programs tend to be in continuing education. There are also the local satellites of foreign universities, though they tend to be smaller in scale unlike the late UNSW Asia.

Recall subsidies are limited to UniSIM’s domestic-accredited programs, but not its foreign-accredited ones. This recent policy suggests the reason why subsidies are limited to local public schools. My interpretation is this: It is the industrial policy of the state to support domestic brands, and not domestic firms per se. The firm itself (UniSIM) may be based locally, owned by locals, fully staffed by locals, and the services provided primarily to locals, but because the product on offer is essentially foreign (accreditation from Open University et al) it is therefore not in the interest of the state to promote it.

I don’t agree with this because I do believe it is in the interest of the state to make the playing field level, so that new entrants have a fair chance against incumbents, who have to compete harder for customers. A lot of you have told me that you have no desire to subsidize degree mills and predators on less-savvy paper-hungry students. Neither do I. But the current population of private providers in the education market isn’t representative of what we would expect in a competitive one. The state has crowded out everyone who isn’t low-cost. How could UNSW Asia compete for students who can go to NUS for a quarter of the price? It couldn’t.

Singapore Management is a good example of why it makes sense to welcome foreign competition. SMU is basically a Wharton replicate, from the curriculum to the joint programs to the scholarship modeled on IS&B to the pervasive investment banking / management consulting culture. That was its main selling point back when it first got started – a brand-name foreign-style education available locally. SMU students were eligible for subsidies from the beginning. But nobody thinks that subsidizing SMU diluted the Singapore brand. If anything, it made Singapore a more attractive place to go to school, and gave students more choices. It might’ve also motivated NUS and NTU’s business programs to improve.

However, the degree of competition unleashed by extending subsidies to all undergraduate programs in Singapore will always be limited by the fact that starting a new (comprehensive) university in Singapore, even with subsidies from the state, is a massive endeavor fraught with risk, and the market cannot support an infinite number of players. It also takes years to establish one – the fourth public university is now under construction, and nobody knows if it will succeed or not. Competitive forces will have a glacial pace. But there are hundreds of universities abroad that our local players might compete with, and if citizens eligible for the means-tested subsidy could take it anywhere they chose to go, competition will be that much more perfect.

I’ve received some e-mail (fewer than anticipated) asking whether I am still alive, so let this allay your concerns. Some of what has kept me busy since term started are my several writing commitments. One of which is for the Korea Times, in which my essay on globalization, trade and finance has been published in the Nov 1st edition. You can read it here.

Unfortunately, I suppose the ‘headline’ nature of newspaper publishing has truncated my original title: “The Open Door and the Even Hand: Leadership and Risk Management in the Global Economy”. Yeah, its pretty lengthy, but I needed it to make the logical link back to the given topic “Ways to Reduce Risk in the Globalized Financial Market”. Without the original title, I fear my metaphor-heavy concluding paragraph doesn’t make much sense. The organizers never consulted me about truncating the title, otherwise I would have changed it somewhat to retain the metaphor.

This is my second published op-ed, but not a significant improvement in terms of prestige of the newspaper or quality of writing. I am not particularly proud of this essay, the narrative lead-in is crude and the metaphors are forced, and the analysis isn’t particularly insightful. This reflects the amount of time I spent writing it: an all-nighter partly spent reading up on the Korean financial crisis, instead of the relaxed weeklong process I usually take. At its best, my prose is cold fire, as much an art as it is (social) science. At its worst, its a take-home midterm on a topic I care little about, policy wonk regurgitation.

My target is to publish an op-ed in a flagship newspaper: NYT, WSJ, WaPo. I’ll have to think up a strategy to reach that goal.

I’ve attached the article here in case the link to koreatimes.co.kr is down:

Korea Times: Biz/Finance 10-31-2008 20:56
Leadership Key for Risk Management

From the window on the Pyongui line, I caught my first glimpse of Pyongyang, and my first thought was how different this place was from Seoul. Even the train ride here was a far cry from the KTX I took from the APEC summit in Busan. I remember being struck by the sheer dynamism of the city as it celebrated, and was celebrated by, the global economy. The difference with Pyongyang could not be more apparent.

While North Korea chose to close its doors to the outside world, South Korea chose otherwise, and has become Asia’s fourth largest economy. Yet as the U.S. financial crisis sends shockwaves in international capital markets, Iceland and Pakistan near sovereign default, and a looming global recession, openness now seems a liability: Korea faces weakening external demand, rising inflation due to import prices, and a liquidity crunch from foreign capital flight.

This is not the first time Korea has faced global economic instability. Ten years of post-crisis reforms have prepared it to weather the storm ahead. But how well has it learned the lessons of 1997?

A fundamental principle of international economics is the “impossible trinity”: a country cannot have capital mobility, an independent monetary policy, and fixed exchange rates simultaneously. Many Asian countries learned this the hard way in 1997. Yet Korea is trying to have all three in 2008: the economy needs foreign investment, the central bank targets inflation, while the government has intervened in currency markets in both directions.

1997 taught us that successful currency intervention is extremely difficult. The global financial system is too complex for anyone to foresee, let alone manipulate. Government intervention not only drains foreign reserves, it also risks overcorrecting, bad timing, and having unintended consequences. It often does more harm than good.

Given the complexity of the global economy, countries that benefit from international trade and finance must also accept some vulnerability to forces beyond their control. Risk and reward are part and parcel of capitalism. Though we cannot eliminate this risk without unacceptable costs, we can manage risk by strengthening the domestic economy and institutions, preparing it to stand against the tide of the global business cycle.

Korea has prepared well. Early warning systems keep an eye on economic conditions, and its financial institutions are far more robust today: Although some banks have U.S. exposure, their credit ratings are unchanged. Conglomerates have undergone painful restructuring and emerged stronger: for example, Hynix, formed from Hyundai and LG’s semiconductor businesses, was billions in debt after the dotcom crash. Now, it is the sixth largest semiconductor manufacturer.

Yet one variable has been neglected: Small and medium enterprises. 99 percent of businesses, 88 percent of employment and 50 percent of added value in Korea come from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). But while conglomerates restructured, SMEs were protected by the government and never went through Schumpeter’s “creative destruction.” SME restructuring was merely delayed, and many, which should have adjusted long ago, now face bankruptcy.

The government should help SMEs weather the crisis, but it should not allow this support to be abused. In 1997, leverage and derivatives were the problems. Then, conglomerates over-leveraged with short-term foreign-denominated debt, precipitating the crisis when creditors called. Now SMEs are over-leveraged, with trillions in losses from debt financing through Knock-In Knock-Out (KIKO) derivatives.

Forex options are appropriate for exporters hedging against currency appreciation, or importers against depreciation, but that is not how KIKO options were structured. Instead of covering the downside from currency volatility, KIKO gave firms unlimited downside with limited upside from currency stability ― the opposite of a hedging strategy. Some subscribers were domestic-oriented firms with no direct exposure to currency risk in the first place. It is unclear whether they understood the risks involved or the instrument they bought. If they did, KIKO was a highly speculative bet that the government would intervene to stabilize exchange rates ― it did ― and that it would do so effectively ― it did not. But with the bailout of KIKO losses, they effectively won the bet.

SMEs were not solely responsible: Banks, which sold KIKO contracts, now face a class action lawsuit. There is a clear conflict of interest between their fiduciary duty and sales desk, and their corporate governance needs review. Yet as the government bailout proceeds, it should avoid distorting the market by rewarding misconduct and mismanagement. If good firms are to succeed, we must allow weak firms to fail, and taxpayers should not bear the burden of someone else’s bad decisions.

Risk management in the global economy requires leadership that knows its limitations, and can make the tough decisions to do what is necessary, even if it is politically costly. The open door needs an even hand that is fair to exporters, importers, consumers, investors, and taxpayers alike. Risk management is not easy, but there’s only one alternative to the open door: Just look north.

What prize did I win? A lifetime supply of kdramas, courtesy of mysoju.com. Yup.

I get this question a lot from friends, even though I’m no expert on the subject. It’s hard for me to find the right answer because generalizing about essay competitions isn’t terribly useful – they vary too much in their types and topics, and each has its own optimal approach. At the risk of overgeneralizing, I will limit my advice to a few principles that should be applicable to all kinds of essay contests on any topic under the sun. I draw mostly from my experiences writing for and judging.

1. Play to win
This is fundamental. The top entrants will have something substantial and meaningful to say, and you have to surpass them. If you’re not willing to put in enough time and effort to win, then there’s no point playing, so consider carefully whether you can do this.

I assume that you have some disciplinary background on the topic, because otherwise you would have no interest in or benefit from playing, but that is not sufficient in considering whether beating the competition is possible. For example, you might consider it possible when the pool of entries is mostly students/youths, because you face at worst MA/PhD candidates or young professionals. Use the results of previous years (and read the winning essays) to gauge the real level of competition, rather than simply looking at the terms and conditions. Just because a contest is open doesn’t necessarily mean everyone will participate. The corollary to this is that sometimes the level of competition is understated in the T&C due to winner quotas from particular regions or countries, as is the case with some IGO/NGO type contests.

2. Answer the question
Before you start writing, and before you even decide on a direction to take, you should consider whether your essay is directly relevant to the topic. This is crucial, especially if the topic is structured as a question or series of questions, as is usually the case.

The first round of the judging process is usually shortlisting the entries to a manageable number, and this is a rough cull of essays that are not explicitly relevant – the first round judges usually do not have the luxury of giving each entry full consideration, so if they don’t immediately see the connection, you may not get to the second round even if your essay is beautifully written.

Many people can get carried away by a compelling argument or issue, or convince themselves that their essay is obviously on topic, then invest a lot of time and effort into writing something that will not be seriously read because the staff member assigned to shortlist 50 out of a 1000 essays only had five minutes to scan through it. (I was once assigned to do this.) Even if it does get through to the final round, explicit relevance may be a decisive factor if the final entries are equal in quality.

3. Be creative/Tell a story
To stand out from the pool of entries, you should try to add something new and original, even if it’s superficial. This is particularly important in getting past the first round, since you can catch the attention of the shortlister who is usually tired of reading the same things over and over. Creativity (having an innovative approach or idea) is sometimes also part of the selection criteria.

Some of the usual techniques are metaphors and slogans, but the easiest way to do this is to employ the first person perspective. Narratives can be very powerful because they draw the reader into a story, and personal experiences carry more narrative weight. This can be a good way to begin an essay or make a point. You can also achieve a kind of symmetry by concluding the essay with the same narrative style/content.

Unfortunately this is something of an art, and success will depend a lot on your writing style. You should use it sparingly since you need to have substantive content as well. It must also be done in a way that does not undermine point two.

This was one of the most important lessons in my University Writing seminar class. At the time their assignments to write ‘lenses’ and ‘conversations’ seemed rather contrived, but I now realize that they were trying to teach us useful narrative techniques.

4. Write for the audience
So you wrote a great essay, thoroughly researched with plenty of citations, and creative enough to get past the shortlist. In the final round, when finalists are evenly matched, the decisive factor is usually the discretion of the final round judges. Knowing the preferences of the judges can tip the scales in your favor.

In most competitions, only the names of the final round judges (usually experts) are disclosed. If names are disclosed, do a quick search to look at their background. Experts love to see their pet topic, and especially if their work is cited prominently. This is a bit trickier if the panel is from industry, where you might have to rely on interviews or annual reports from their firm.

If the panel of judges is not disclosed beforehand, you can make an educated guess about the preferences of the organizers from their literature. For example, if the contest is organized by a central bank, you may wish to emphasize monetary over fiscal policy, or better yet, their monetary policy initiatives.

At least try to avoid writing things that would offend the judges/organization. For example, if the contest is organized by some multilateral institution, you shouldn’t be overly critical of that institution’s leadership/history/policies.

* * *

I’ve been looking for a career path which is functionally similar to writing for essay contests (pursuing research on a topic I’m interested in and writing about it), since this is something I enjoy doing. So far I’ve come up with: Journalist, Pundit/Columnist, Academic. If I change the parameters to ‘pursuing client-centric research and writing’ I come up with: Consultant (management? political risk?), Equity/FI research. Any suggestions?

It looks like I get to see the French-speaking side of Switzerland this time:

On behalf of Dr. Hans Blix, it is my great pleasure to thank you for participating in the Students for A Nuclear Weapons-Free World competition. The expert Panel of Judges, chaired by The Hon. Douglas Roche, was composed of people from all regions of the world. They assessed your contribution to be outstanding and to merit one of the 15 prizes. Please accept our wholehearted congratulations!

The prize is a trip to Geneva to meet Dr. Blix and, together with the other winners, to participate in a seminar. The preliminary program for the seminar is attached.

I didn’t get to travel around Switzerland or tour Europe after St. Gallen/Zurich like Geoffrey et al did, as I had to hurry to Hong Kong to settle the visa issues in order to get my internship going. Now it looks like I can see a little bit more, especially the headquarters of various international organizations, which I have dreamed of being able to see. Only then I can truly count myself a global citizen. Maybe someday I’ll get to work there too.

If you are wondering, my essay was on a demand-side approach to nonproliferation/disarmament. There’s a long tradition of the application of economics (game theory, von neumann) in nuclear weapons policy, but it focuses mostly on a narrow set of behaviors like deterrence. There are a lot more relevant areas for consideration where economic approaches can potentially help us understand phenomena. Now if only I were a real economist instead of just a wannabe.

The 2008 Goldman Sachs Global Leaders Program competition in the United States is closed and the selection process has now been completed. We regret to inform you that you were not selected to receive an award.

All selection decisions are final. In the rare case that an alternate must be selected, the alternate will be notified via telephone next week. Due to the volume of applications the program received, program staff cannot and will not respond to individual inquiries regarding the selection process.

Please keep in mind that the selection was highly competitive. Your achievements reflect great credit upon you, your parents, and your teachers. On behalf of The Goldman Sachs Foundation and the Institute of International Education (IIE), thank you for applying for the Goldman Sachs Global Leaders Program. We wish you much success in your all your future endeavors.

Well, it had always been a long shot and I wasn’t counting on it. It sucks to have not made the second shortlist for F2F interviews. Still, I put in a lot of effort into the application, though I guess I should’ve put in more. Also, this was my last shot at GSGLP, as I will no longer be eligible in future years. It would have been nice to get the scholarship money and the prestige – It’s probably neither necessary nor sufficient to leverage a summer at GS, especially given projected market conditions, but may have at least secured me an interview. Oh well. Good luck Geoffrey, you deserve to win it.

Congratulations! I’m happy to announce that your essay, “Sustainable Development through Capital Markets: Private Sector and Market Approaches to Economic Development” has won Second Prize in the Institute for Humane Studies Essay Contest for Undergraduates. We received more than 750 entries for this contest, and the competition was intense.

I won another IHS contest, and now I think my friends there are going to ban me from future ones. I wouldn’t blame them if they did, it’s meant to be an outreach tool. Then again, I’m not really sure that they are putting that much effort into outreach either: 750 entries is somewhat low for an essay contest, considering the size of the prizes relative to other contests.

It is our great pleasure to inform you that you have been selected from over 1,000 applicants to join the 9th China Synergy Programme for Outstanding Youth (CSP9), which will be held from 1st July to 17th July this year.

I’m glad I got into China Synergy this time since I will be in Beijing this summer, and hopping to Hong Kong won’t be too expensive. Last year, I assumed CUCSSA (the mainland chinese graduate students club here) would give me one of their assigned places, but I was probably internally rejected for not being a mainlander or a graduate student. This year I made no such assumption and suffered through the ridiculously cumbersome application form which required that I fill out all its pages at one time. Now, I get to chill with a bunch of chinese kids on their heavily-subsidized study tour from Hong Kong to Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xian and Tianjin. It’s going to be awesome.

The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

It was the precise moment the universe shattered. Time and space stop, past and present tense have no meaning now.

An hour before – a lifetime ago? – my roommate says. She’s having a get-together at midnight at the usual place. She wants to know if we’d like to come. I smile. It would be the second time today I meet the one who I see forever in.

T-minus five. We’re already at ground zero. All her friends are here. I am glad to finally be part of the core group. She arrives and sits across from me. I say something. She doesn’t meet my eyes. I suppose I should’ve known something was up then.

T-minus one. The bubbling of conversation, people laughing. I wonder if this is what it means to have friends. I listen quietly, but for the life of me I can’t remember what was said. And then she casually mentions that she has chosen another.

That was the precise moment my universe shattered.

Pulse races out of control. Heartbeats seem deafening, I wonder if other people can hear it. I wonder what she sees sitting across from me, what the precise moment of heartbreak looks like, because I can’t let it be more than a moment. All her friends are here. It takes every ounce of sheer willpower to keep smiling, laughing, talking. Anything will do, as long as it keeps the silence away, as long as it distracts from the fact that my voice is beginning to crack.

There is a growing itch behind my eyelids. It burns to keep from blinking too fast. Don’t you dare cry now. Don’t you fucking dare.

T-plus five. I excuse myself from the table to get a drink, and duck into a corner out of sight. Deep breaths now, slowly. Think, boy, think. I desperately want to go home, but I can’t just up and leave for no reason. I can’t let them think that anything is wrong. I have to stay, and find the right opportunity to make my exit.

Paranoia sets in when I return to the table, trembling fingers can barely open my snapple, I don’t think I could look anyone in the eye now, because the eyes are the window to the soul and then they might see that I have retreated into that tiny space within it that nothing can touch. I fear also that I might see mocking glances, as if the world laughs at my folly, the itch behind my eyes is intolerable, I have no mouth but I must scream, and it feels like I. am. about. to. burst. I make up some stupid excuse about early classes and make my getaway.

The spring air is cold, so cold. As the door closes, I feel empty. Nothing at all. My feet are on autopilot, one step after another, up the steps and across campus to my favorite place. The view from the bridge always calms me. You can look down the hill onto a line of lights that stretch away for miles. I imagine this to be a perfect place for confessions, when the wind is gentle and a fresh layer of snow covers the stones, and all the lights have turned green as if to tell you to go ahead. But now all the lights are red.

In the precise moment the universe shattered, all is chaos. Nothing has logic or meaning. Hours pass, but I am no closer to finding the answer why. Reason and rationality fail me as the trail of inquiry leads down a path of self-recrimination. It is why they call it falling in love, a force of attraction as strong as gravity. And like gravity, what was once the star whose light lit my way collapses into a void that feeds upon itself. How could you do this to me becomes how could I have done this to myself. All my inadequacies become apparent. I have never felt so worthless before.

Menu-star. I scroll down through the address book to find someone who can give me the answers. It is 2AM and none of my friends are awake. I’m not even sure what to tell them. Hi there, the world is ending, save me. It is at that point that I realize that there is no one in this world I can count on for my happiness. Then the moment matters not, and I do not mourn the shattering of a universe indifferent to my existence.

I return to the room hoping that roommate is already asleep, but light still creeps out from under the door. I open it and sit at my desk as if nothing has happened, and roommate is kind enough to play along. Before he turns out the light, he says. She called just now. And then the lights go out and he crawls into bed.

I sit in the dark staring at the screen. It stares back and says. So she cares. At least enough to call. And I ask, did she really call? Or did he lie to make me feel better? It doesn’t reply, but I already know the answer. And then finally the tears come all at once. I am thankful for their tardiness, since no one can see them drown me now.

It was the precise moment the universe shattered. Time and space cease to exist, and past, present and future are one. I relive it every minute of every day of every month of every year, trapped in the moment.

It was the precise moment the universe shattered.

The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

It was the precise moment the universe shattered. Time and space stop, past and present tense have no meaning now.

In July 2007, the South Korean ministry of finance announced that it had hired the lead actor and actress from a hit television serial that aired May-July to promote their microcredit program. That television serial, “War of Money” (쩐의전쟁), was about the informal moneylending industry in South Korea, reaching an average of 32.8% of households in the greater Seoul area and 31% nationwide, and it was the top-rated serial of the season, so popular that ‘bonus’ episodes were produced – it remains one of my personal all-time favorite kdramas. Much of its storyline emphasized themes of income volatility, uncollateralized credit, innovative entrepreneurship, and good (and bad) borrowing practices – all themes relevant to microfinance. In an interview prior to the serial’s airing, the lead actor Park Shin-yang (박신양, of Lovers in Paris/파리의연인 fame) had even noted that one of the sources of inspiration that he drew from was the work of Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank.

Perhaps it may be useful to take “Money’s Warfare” one step further, and consider a similar application of television serials in microfinance education, through its plot, themes, and product placement strategy.

Advantages & Disadvantages of Television Serials as educational medium
Pros:

Proven consumer education tool
No literacy requirement
Highly scalable
Advertising/product placement synergies

Cons:

Requires infrastructure/television access
Highly variable outcomes
Highly culturally-specific
Target demographic mismatch

Pros
Proven consumer education tool. First, that television is effective for consumer education is well-documented in marketing literature, and more recently studies have analyzed its role in educating viewers on such social issues as gender discrimination. (See among others, Jensen, Robert and Oster, Emily. “The Power of TV: Cable Television and Women’s Status in India.” NBER Working Paper Series No. 13305 August 2007) Television content is in an entertainment format, such as popular soap operas, that reach a broad audience. Even if soap operas are not explicitly intended to impart specific messages for social development (as the Sabido Method of socially-oriented programming performed in Latin America), they still raise viewer awareness of the alternative lifestyles and the implicit social values of those depicted. This can have a tremendous impact on rural, less-educated communities where links with the urban populace are few and far between. If the serial is very successful, the impact will be that much greater: the top 10 soap operas in India attract as many as 50 million viewers a night.

No literary requirement. Second, television as an education medium does not require any literacy on the part of the viewer, unlike newspaper advertising or pamphlets. Considering that the adult literacy rate in rural developing countries is low, the value of this should not be underestimated.

Highly scalable. Third, television serials are highly scalable, as once initial investments in public broadcast radio-wave or satellite/cable infrastructure is in place, the marginal cost of delivery per household is near zero. Serials can also be easily reproduced as VCDs or DVDs and made to suit different languages and regional dialects via dubbing and subtitles. This means that if a television serial is successful in one area, it can be spread to other areas easily via different mechanisms.

Advertising & product placement synergies. Fourth, television serials are also opportunities for marketing of microcredit services, whether overtly through advertising slots or more subtle product placements integrated into the storyline, which I will describe further below. Even with microcredit advertising, there will be space for other advertising as well, and for popular serials, advertising revenue may even cover the cost of production, which means greater sustainability.

Cons
Requires electricity infrastructure & television access. Although this may be a limiting factor to outreach in poorer rural areas, it should be noted that for many poor households, a television set is one of the most important status/aspirational goods, because of the relatively cost-effective entertainment value and escape it provides from a dreary life. Also, televisions are quasi-non-rival-goods since the marginal cost of another person watching at the same time is almost zero (up to a point).

Unfortunately, the educational impact of the serial, which depends on the its popularity, is highly dependent on exogenous factors like the timeslot it airs, the cast, etc. Impact is also highly culturally-specific, if it is intended to be accessible to the audience. Furthermore, most viewers of television serials are middle-class housewives, and not the target clients of microcredit products. Yet these can still be mitigated by an effective marketing strategy and excellent scripting, which I address below.

Possible plot, themes, and characters
Television serials need drama to be successful. I propose a serial about the development of a microfinance institution (MFI), with two overlapping love triangles (a staple of most soap operas and the standard formula in Korean serials). For my purposes I set the drama in mainland China, where audiences are very familiar with K-dramas. The serial’s plot will emphasize themes like:

Uncertainty about the future and employment security
The failure of social safety nets and the welfare system
The high cost of informal moneylenders and poor access to formal financial institutions
The power of entrepreneurs with microloans

The main characters are:

The activist. A brilliant economics student from a poor interior province studying at Tsinghua University, she is forced to drop out to support her ailing parents, whose spiraling healthcare costs are caused by a substandard and corrupt socialized healthcare bureaucracy and the breaking of the ‘iron ricebowl’ of state-owned enterprises and the danwei system. Unable to make ends meet due to the decaying economy of the interior provinces and the politicized nature of the state banks, her father passes away, and she swears vengeance against the corrupt officials and to revive the provincial economy. Will she prevail, or will her enemies destroy her MFI?

The financier down on his luck. The youngest son of a wealthy private equity dynasty, he must prove himself worthy and make his fortune, but he’s just had a string of failures partly due to his pride and hot temper (although he’s actually a nice guy deep down inside). When the activist miraculously saves his life from a triad kidnapping, their fates are entwined, and he takes a chance on her crazy idea about microfinance, which she explains to him (and the audience). Is he falling for her, or just repaying a debt of gratitude? Can he find it in his heart to understand this business, or is he just about the money?

The bureaucrat out to get her. The doctor’s most hated rival in Tsinghua, now a rising star in the state banks due to her family political connections in the Shanghai clique. Set up for an arranged marriage with the financier, she bitterly resents the doctor’s growing presence in his heart and her rise up the social ladder. How far will she go to get what she wants?

The official who loves her. The doctor’s secret admirer from her school days, now a government official in Zhongnanhai. Will he side with the system, or with her? Can he beat the financier in pursuit of her love?

You can probably tell I watch far too many soap operas, probably to make up for the lack of drama in my life. Maybe when I go to China this summer I can pitch this story at CCTV? Or maybe not. I guess television dramas about civil society activism and government corruption might be unpopular with the censors.

…we received a total of 82 submissions from 22 different countries for the competition this year.

After a strict screening of all the essays, the four submissions below have been selected as the Prize Excellence of the competition in 2007. Unfortunately, however, there was not one that the Selection Committee members should strongly back for the Grand Prize of 1 million yen.

Competitor analysis: I am the youngest of the 4 winners, though not by much. Of the other 2 non-Japanese winners i.e. the English-language entries, one is an exchange student at Nagoya who won this year’s ADB competition, and the other works for a strategy consulting firm in Beijing. I look forward to meeting them both, they have pretty interesting backgrounds.

Going forward: 82 entries is lower than previous years and I predict next year will be less competitive. Also, previous winners (at least the Japanese ones) tended to be much older. I will work harder next time around to clinch the top prize. Before this, there were very few English-language winners to refer to as a model. When I am there I will talk to the judges to assess the relative standing of our essays and thus find out which approach (academic vs mainstream, micro vs macro) is favored.

Reality check: Oh well life goes on, and I’m happy that I won a free trip to Tokyo, which is pretty awesome by itself. Also, it’s pretty cool that I managed to write a serious paper with the made-up word ‘Gundamnomics’ in the title. I really do hope to do empirical studies of the anime industry/subculture someday, and maybe some future scholar will cite my essay. Who knows, I may have coined a term that future reports about the anime industry may use. Or maybe not. It wasn’t that appropriate a metaphor: Generally Gundams don’t really ‘transform’ though some from recent versions like Gundam 00 do.

Thus unfortunately I am not a ‘millionaire’ like Geoffrey is. Even though in nominal Yen/Won-to-USD exchange rate terms my prize is larger, it isn’t when adjusted for purchasing power parity: Given how expensive Tokyo is, I’ll probably end up spending all my prize money on metro fare and instant noodles, while Geoff has a ‘chuka party’ at the Lotte Myeongdong. I wonder if they say ‘omedetou party’.

We would like to express our gratitude to you for submitting your essay to the JFTC Essay Competition 2007. After a strict screening of all the essays, we have selected your essay, “Gundamnomics: Transforming Corporate Japan for the Challenges of Global Capitalism” as a candidate for an award. The final result is scheduled to be announced on Friday, December 14, and the winners will be notified directly. The Awarding Ceremony and our New Year’s Reception will be held from 16:30 to 19:00 on January 9, 2008 at Hotel New Otani, Tokyo, Japan.

During the IHS advanced topics seminar in Washington, I skipped the open bar social, stayed up all night in my hotel room, and fell asleep during the workshops, all because I wrote this essay at the eleventh hour – even at the train station and on the ride back to New York. The only drinks I took from the open bar were cans of coke. (I should really stop this habit of procrastinating about essay deadlines) But it was all worth it if I get to go to Tokyo, which has been my dream ever since my love for Japanese culture began in high school.

The essay abstract:

It is no surprise that in August 2007, Michael Bay’s Transformers debuted in Japan with an opening weekend of ¥631.3 million, the number one at the Japanese box office. The Transformers franchise, from which Bay’s film was adapted, began with a 1980s animated television series that was not only based on designs by Japanese toy manufacturer Takara and produced by Toei Animation, but was also inspired by the classic Japanese animation genre of giant transforming robots that includes Voltron, Super Dimension Fortress Macross, and Mobile Suit Gundam. If this genre was a metaphor for the successful postwar transformation of the Japanese economy into a global powerhouse, Transformers is not merely a part of Japanese cultural imagination, but may well be the history of corporate Japan – and perhaps also its future.

With the passing of the ‘lost decade’, it is time for corporate Japan to undertake a new strategic transformation to meet the dynamic challenges of global capitalism. In this essay, I argue that the collapse of the asset-price bubble and subsequent banking crisis created fundamental systemic changes to Japan’s political economy and institutions, and heightened its sensitivity to international capital markets and global economic forces. These challenges will require Japanese companies to achieve an efficient allocation of physical, financial, and human capital by adjusting their human resource management policies to leverage on foreign and female talent, adopting a more meritocratic and flexible corporate culture, and changing their approach to corporate governance.

If I visit Tokyo, I want to pay homage to the mecca of all anime fans Akihabara, crash a Todai/Waseda class, eat street stand ramen, walk Shibuya crossing and pet Hachiko the dog, climb Tokyo tower… reading about SY-sempai’s adventures, it just blows my mind how many things I want to do there. I also want to visit old friends and classmates, meet local contacts in the libertarian network, and talk to alumni there about investment banking in Japan. Of course, it would mean I have to crash course myself in nihongo, which means postponing my crash course in hangukmal. I really hope I get to go, because there is no way I could justify the expense without airfare and accommodation covered.