Ivan Png
Biographic Data
| ID | 341926 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ivan Png |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ivan |
| FAMILY NAME | Png |
| SIGNATURE | PNG I |
| AFFILIATIONS | National University of Singapore |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7463-5517 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 74 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 9 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
The misruling elites
The existing scholarship has developed six main explanations to account for the success of the Chinese Revolution, which has been anomalous for major paradigms derived from cross-national comparisons. Methodologically, we use a social geographical approach to test these existing explanations systematically by constructing and analyzing a unique dataset of Communist growth in 93 counties in the three most contested provinces during its most pivota…
Managerial Economics
Now in its sixth edition, Ivan Png's Managerial Economics has been extensively revised with an introductory chapter emphasizing decision-making and behavioral biases, intensive application to current business and economic issues including technology, globalization, and pandemics, a closing chapter highlighting business responses to climate change, a streamlined presentation focusing on the economics that managers need to know. As always, the text…
When Things Were Falling Apart
A fundamental question that has concerned social scientists since Barrington Moore is the political transformations that accompanied agrarian societies’ transitions to modern economy. One paradigmatic case is the peasant-based Communist revolution in China, the causes of which have been the subject of a long-standing debate. Scholars have emphasized peasant proletarianization, Communist leadership in peasant nationalism, the attraction of their s…
Nonlabor Income and Age at Marriage
We exploit China’s heating policy to investigate how nonlabor income affects marriage. From the mid-1950s, the policy gave substantial subsidies to urban residents north of the Huai River. Applying geographic regression discontinuity, we find that with the policy, urban men in the north married 15 months earlier than men in the south. The difference is substantial given that the average age at first marriage is 24.9 years for urban men in the sou…
Law and Innovation
Here, I study the effect of state enactment of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA) on R&D among U.S. businesses between 1979 and 1998. Using a new index of the legal protection of trade secrets, I find that the UTSA was associated with higher R&D among larger companies and those in high-tech industries. For the average company in the respective industry, the UTSA was associated with 3.2% more R&D in pharmaceuticals and 3.1% more R&D in computers…
Monitoring costs and the mode of international investment
Our central proposition is that monitoring costs increase with physical distance, and hence, direct investments located further from the foreign investor's home base should be more likely formed as joint ventures. Tests on a data set of Taiwanese direct investments in Mainland China provide robust support to the hypothesis. A project that was located 1000 kilometers further away was 13–17% more likely to be formed as a joint venture
Corruptible Law Enforcers
We study the optimal compensation policy for a corruptible inspector, charged with monitoring pollution from a factory. Our utilitarian approach focuses on the trade-off among corruption, pollution, and enforcement effort. Owing to the strategic interaction between factory and inspector, changes in compensation policy have surprising effects, e.g., raising the penalty for corruption may cause pollution to increase. We find that bribery is an inef…
Marginal Deterrence in Enforcement of Law
The authors characterize optimal enforcement in a setting in which individuals can select among various levels of some activity, all of which are monitored at the same rate but may be prosecuted and punished at varying rates. For less harmful acts, marginal expected penalties ought to fall short of marginal harms caused. Indeed, some range of very minor acts should be legalized. For more harmful acts, whether marginal expected penalties should fa…
Most-Favored-Customer Protection versus Price Discrimination over Time
How should a seller price capacity that has no salvage value to heterogeneous customers whose valuations are private information? There are two periods, and the seller cannot precommit to prices in the later period. One option is price discrimination: first price high, then discount later if excess capacity remains. By offering most-favored-customer protection, the seller can charge more in advance, but will leave capacity unsold with positive pr…
Corruptible Law Enforcers
We study the optimal compensation policy for a corruptible inspector, charged with monitoring pollution from a factory. Our utilitarian approach focuses on the trade-off among corruption, pollution, and enforcement effort. Owing to the strategic interaction between factory and inspector, changes in compensation policy have surprising effects, e.g., raising the penalty for corruption may cause pollution to increase. We find that bribery is an inef…
Marginal Deterrence in Enforcement of Law
The authors characterize optimal enforcement in a setting in which individuals can select among various levels of some activity, all of which are monitored at the same rate but may be prosecuted and punished at varying rates. For less harmful acts, marginal expected penalties ought to fall short of marginal harms caused. Indeed, some range of very minor acts should be legalized. For more harmful acts, whether marginal expected penalties should fa…
When Things Were Falling Apart
A fundamental question that has concerned social scientists since Barrington Moore is the political transformations that accompanied agrarian societies’ transitions to modern economy. One paradigmatic case is the peasant-based Communist revolution in China, the causes of which have been the subject of a long-standing debate. Scholars have emphasized peasant proletarianization, Communist leadership in peasant nationalism, the attraction of their s…
Nonlabor Income and Age at Marriage
We exploit China’s heating policy to investigate how nonlabor income affects marriage. From the mid-1950s, the policy gave substantial subsidies to urban residents north of the Huai River. Applying geographic regression discontinuity, we find that with the policy, urban men in the north married 15 months earlier than men in the south. The difference is substantial given that the average age at first marriage is 24.9 years for urban men in the sou…
Monitoring costs and the mode of international investment
Our central proposition is that monitoring costs increase with physical distance, and hence, direct investments located further from the foreign investor's home base should be more likely formed as joint ventures. Tests on a data set of Taiwanese direct investments in Mainland China provide robust support to the hypothesis. A project that was located 1000 kilometers further away was 13–17% more likely to be formed as a joint venture
Most-Favored-Customer Protection versus Price Discrimination over Time
How should a seller price capacity that has no salvage value to heterogeneous customers whose valuations are private information? There are two periods, and the seller cannot precommit to prices in the later period. One option is price discrimination: first price high, then discount later if excess capacity remains. By offering most-favored-customer protection, the seller can charge more in advance, but will leave capacity unsold with positive pr…
Marginal Deterrence in Enforcement of Law
The authors characterize optimal enforcement in a setting in which individuals can select among various levels of some activity, all of which are monitored at the same rate but may be prosecuted and punished at varying rates. For less harmful acts, marginal expected penalties ought to fall short of marginal harms caused. Indeed, some range of very minor acts should be legalized. For more harmful acts, whether marginal expected penalties should fa…
Corruptible Law Enforcers
We study the optimal compensation policy for a corruptible inspector, charged with monitoring pollution from a factory. Our utilitarian approach focuses on the trade-off among corruption, pollution, and enforcement effort. Owing to the strategic interaction between factory and inspector, changes in compensation policy have surprising effects, e.g., raising the penalty for corruption may cause pollution to increase. We find that bribery is an inef…
Monitoring costs and the mode of international investment
Our central proposition is that monitoring costs increase with physical distance, and hence, direct investments located further from the foreign investor's home base should be more likely formed as joint ventures. Tests on a data set of Taiwanese direct investments in Mainland China provide robust support to the hypothesis. A project that was located 1000 kilometers further away was 13–17% more likely to be formed as a joint venture
Law and Innovation
Here, I study the effect of state enactment of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA) on R&D among U.S. businesses between 1979 and 1998. Using a new index of the legal protection of trade secrets, I find that the UTSA was associated with higher R&D among larger companies and those in high-tech industries. For the average company in the respective industry, the UTSA was associated with 3.2% more R&D in pharmaceuticals and 3.1% more R&D in computers…
When Things Were Falling Apart
A fundamental question that has concerned social scientists since Barrington Moore is the political transformations that accompanied agrarian societies’ transitions to modern economy. One paradigmatic case is the peasant-based Communist revolution in China, the causes of which have been the subject of a long-standing debate. Scholars have emphasized peasant proletarianization, Communist leadership in peasant nationalism, the attraction of their s…
Nonlabor Income and Age at Marriage
We exploit China’s heating policy to investigate how nonlabor income affects marriage. From the mid-1950s, the policy gave substantial subsidies to urban residents north of the Huai River. Applying geographic regression discontinuity, we find that with the policy, urban men in the north married 15 months earlier than men in the south. The difference is substantial given that the average age at first marriage is 24.9 years for urban men in the sou…
Managerial Economics
Now in its sixth edition, Ivan Png's Managerial Economics has been extensively revised with an introductory chapter emphasizing decision-making and behavioral biases, intensive application to current business and economic issues including technology, globalization, and pandemics, a closing chapter highlighting business responses to climate change, a streamlined presentation focusing on the economics that managers need to know. As always, the text…
The misruling elites
The existing scholarship has developed six main explanations to account for the success of the Chinese Revolution, which has been anomalous for major paradigms derived from cross-national comparisons. Methodologically, we use a social geographical approach to test these existing explanations systematically by constructing and analyzing a unique dataset of Communist growth in 93 counties in the three most contested provinces during its most pivota…
Economics (8 works) · Business (5 works) · Law (4 works) · Political science (4 works) · Auction Theory and Applications (3 works) · Geography (3 works) · China (2 works) · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance (2 works) · Chinese history and philosophy (2 works) · Commerce (2 works)