Publications

Urban Life

The demands of displacement, the micro-aggressions of multiculturalism: Performing an idea of "Indianness" in Singapore

Orlando WOODS and Lily KONG

This paper explores the ways in which state-defined discourses of multiculturalism can unintentionally create a framework through which micro-aggressions are enacted against those interpreted as "other". These definitions cascade down from the state to majority and then minority ethno-national groups, who leverage positions of relative dominance to establish the terms of acceptance and integration into society. By negotiating these terms, ethnicity becomes a performative construct through which difference is asserted and reified. We illustrate these ideas through an empirical analysis of Singapore's minority Indian community, and how Singaporean Indians perform an idea of "Indianness" in response to their Singaporean Chinese fellow citizens on the one hand, and their migrant Indian counterparts on the other. This positioning causes Singaporean Indians to be subject to micro-aggressions vis-a-vis the Chinese majority, and to perpetrate micro-aggressions against Indian non-national minorities. In turn, this causes Singaporean Indianness to be underperformed throughout daily life.

WOODS, Orlando and KONG, Lily. The demands of displacement, the micro-aggressions of multiculturalism: Performing an idea of "Indianness" in Singapore. (2023). Ethnic and Racial Studies. 46, (1), 119-140.

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Urban Growth

Housing wealth shocks, home equity withdrawal, and the claiming of Social Security retirement benefits

Naqun HUANG, Li JING, and Amanda ROSS

This paper examines the impact of changes in house prices on when eligible individuals start receiving Social Security benefits. If house prices increase, financially constrained households may draw upon the additional home equity to finance expenses and delay receipt of Social Security in order to have increased lifetime monthly benefits. To address concerns that house price changes are correlated with unobserved local demand shocks, we use a control function approach and employ two different instrumental variables. We find that individuals delay Social Security claiming when house prices increase during the housing boom. The probability of claiming within two years after becoming eligible decreases by 8.67-8.81 percent for every 10 percent increase in house prices. We also find that the total home loan amount increases in response to the price appreciation, indicating households are drawing upon their home equity to finance consumption and delay receiving Social Security.

HUANG, Naqun; JING, Li; and ROSS, Amanda. Housing wealth shocks, home equity withdrawal, and the claiming of social security retirement benefits. (2022). Economic Inquiry. 60, (2), 620-644.

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Urban Growth

Forced moves and home maintenance: The amplifying effects of mortgage payment burden on underwater homeowners

John HARDING, Li JING, Stuart ROSENTHAL, and Xirui ZHANG

Although the adverse effect of high loan to value ratios (LTV) on mortgage default is known, the potential amplifying effect of high payment-to-income (PTI) ratios that can force families out of their homes has received limited attention. High PTI and LTV can also add to default costs by discouraging home maintenance. Using the 1985-2013 AHS panel, we show that high PTI prompts families to move and especially so for households with LTV above 120%. This lends support for policies like HAMP and HARP that seek to reduce forced moves and mortgage default by lowering mortgage payment burden for financially stressed families. High PTI also reduces home maintenance but in this case amplification effects differ: it is low PTI that amplifies adverse effects of high LTV as underwater families divert discretionary spending away from maintenance.

HARDING, John; JING, Li; ROSENTHAL, Stuart; and ZHANG, Xirui. Forced moves and home maintenance: The amplifying effects of mortgage payment burden on underwater homeowners. (2022). Real Estate Economics. 50, (2), 498-533.

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Urban Growth

JUE insight: Migration, transportation infrastructure, and the spatial transmission of COVID-19 in China

Bingjing LI and Lin MA

This paper evaluates the impacts of migration flows and transportation infrastructure on the spatial transmission of COVID-19 in China. Prefectures with larger bilateral migration flows and shorter travel distances with Hubei, the epicenter of the outbreak, experienced a wider spread of COVID-19. In addition, richer prefectures with higher incomes were better able to contain the virus at the early stages of community transmission. Using a spatial general equilibrium model, we show that around 28% of the infections outside Hubei province can be explained by the rapid development in transportation infrastructure and the liberalization of migration restrictions in the recent decade.

LI, Bingjing and MA, Lin. JUE insight: Migration, transportation infrastructure, and the spatial transmission of COVID-19 in China. (2022). Journal of Urban Economics. 127, 1-8.

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Urban Growth

Subway, collaborative matching, and innovation

Yumi KOH, Li JING, and Jianhuan XU

Expansion of subway networks helps to enhance connectivity and matches of people by facilitating their mobility. Using rapid expansion of the Beijing subway from 2000 to 2018, we analyze its impact on collaborative matches in innovations. We find that an hour reduction in travel time between a pair of locations in Beijing brought a 15% to 38% increase in collaborated patents. Far-apart location pairs were more affected, and the local average treatment effect is approximately 35% to 82%. Such effect is mainly driven by increased matches among highly productive inventors due to complementarity between inventors’ productivity and travel time. At the same time, we find that the entry of new inventors, relocation of existing inventors, and low productive inventors also contribute to the increase in collaborative matches, especially in the long run

Yumi Koh, Jing Li, Jianhuan Xu; Subway, Collaborative Matching, and Innovation. The Review of Economics and Statistics 2022; doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01279

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Urban Growth

Urbanization policy and economic development: A quantitative analysis of China's differential hukou reforms

Wen-tai HSU and Lin MA

The household registration system (hukou system) in China has hampered rural-urban migration by posing large migration friction. The system has been gradually relaxed in the past few decades, but the reforms have been differential in city size. We find a striking contrast in migration patterns between years 2005 and 2015; rural people tended to move more to large cities in 2005, but more to small- and medium-sized cities in 2015. We calibrate a spatial quantitative model to the world economy in both years with China divided into rural, mega-city, and other-city regions. We find that alternative urbanization policies that are not differential and that are more laissez-faire substantially improve national welfare, in magnitudes that are comparable to the welfare gains from the trade liberalization that China has put in place in the past.

Wen-Tai Hsu, Lin Ma, Urbanization policy and economic development: A quantitative analysis of China's differential hukou reforms, Regional Science and Urban Economics, Volume 91, 2021, 103639, ISSN 0166-0462, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2020.10

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Urban Growth

Hedonic Price of Housing Space

Sumit AGARWAL, Yanying CHEN, Li JING, and Yi Jin TAN

This article estimates hedonic prices for different levels of housing space, by exploiting a unique space‐adding project in Singapore that added a uniform amount of space to each existing housing unit regardless of the original size. This space adding program was carried out if sufficient residents vote in favor of space adding. Using a difference‐in‐differences (DiD) strategy after restricting our sample to narrow margins around the voting cutoff, we find that the additional space increased the resale price of a housing unit by 7% on average, and the extent of price appreciation varied significantly across the original size of the units.

AGARWAL, Sumit; CHEN, Yanying; JING, Li; and TAN, Yi Jin. Hedonic price of housing space. (2021). Real Estate Economics. 49, (2), 574-609.

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Urban Growth

Government Management Capacities and the Containment of COVID-19: A Repeated Cross-Sectional Study across Chinese Cities

Wenchao LI, Jing LI, and Junjian YI

Objectives: Better understanding of the dynamics of the COVID-19 (2019 novel coronavirus disease) pandemic to curb its spread is now a global imperative. While travel restrictions and control measures have been shown to limit the spread of the disease, the effectiveness of the enforcement of those measures should depend on the strength of the government. Whether, and how, the government plays a role in fighting the disease, however, has not been investigated. Here, we show that government management capacities are critical to the containment of the disease. Setting: We conducted a statistical analysis based on cross-city comparisons within China. China has undergone almost the entire cycle of the anticoronavirus campaign, which allows us to trace the full dynamics of the outbreak, with homogeneity in standards for statistics recording. Primary and secondary outcome measures: Outcome measures include city-specific COVID-19 case incidence and recoveries in China. Results: The containment of COVID-19 depends on the effectiveness of the enforcement of control measures, which in turn depends on the local government’s management capacities. Specifically, government efficiency, capacity for law enforcement, and the transparency of laws and policies significantly reduce COVID-19 prevalence and increase the likelihood of recoveries. The organisation size of the government, which is not closely related to its capacity for management, has a limited role.

LI, Wenchao; LI, Jing; and YI, Junjian. Government management capacities and the containment of COVID-19: A repeated cross-sectional study across Chinese cities. (2021). BMJ Open. 11, (4), 1-6.

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Urban Growth

Towards fairly apportioning sale proceeds in a collective sale of Strata Property

Edward TI

Cake-cutting is a longstanding metaphor for a wide range of real-world problems that involve the division of anything of value. Unsurprisingly, where owners of a strata scheme wish to end the strata scheme and collectively sell their development, one of the most contentious issues may be the apportionment of sale proceeds. In Singapore, this problem is compounded in mixed developments which have both commercial and residential elements as well as in developments with different sized units, often with disproportionate strata share values; even differing facings and the state of one’s unit may attract disenchantment when trying to apportion proceeds. This article critically analyses how New South Wales (NSW) and Singapore allocate proceeds pursuant to a collective sale of strata property. In this respect, the Strata Schemes Development Act 2015 (NSW) and Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 (NSW) are significantly clearer than Singapore’s Land Titles (Strata) Act (Cap 158) as the latter does not prescribe any statutory formula for apportionment. In examining the jurisprudence and respective strata frameworks, this article proposes how proceeds in a collective sale could be more fairly apportioned.

TI, Edward S. W.. Towards fairly apportioning sale proceeds in a collective sale of Strata Property. (2020). University of New South Wales Law Journal. 43, (4), 1494-1520.

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Urban Life

The (de)territorialised appeal of international schools in China: Forging brands, boundaries and inter-belonging in segregated urban space

Lily KONG, Orlando WOODS, Hong ZHU

This paper considers how the (de)territorialised appeal of international schools in China can reflect, enforce and expand pre-existing patterns of urban segregation. Whilst exploration of the effects of educational marketplaces on urban environments has become a focus of scholarly research, the recent expansion in the supply of, and demand for, international education has caused these effects to become more nuanced. As (de)territorialised entities, international schools can cause multiple forms of spatial and psycho-social distinction and (dis)association to become intertwined, the effects of which start from the school and radiate out from there. International schools can therefore cause segregation to become a structurally entrenched phenomenon. These ideas are illustrated through an empirical examination of three international schools located in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou. We explore the ways in which these schools are branded spaces that reproduce socio-spatial boundaries and thus foster a (de)territorialised sense of inter-belonging amongst their students.

KONG, Lily, WOODS, Orlando, & ZHU, Hong.(2022). The (de)territorialised appeal of international schools in China: Forging brands, boundaries and inter-belonging in segregated urban space. Urban Studies, 59(1), 242-258.

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