Benjamin Wong
Biographic Data
| ID | 4116395 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Benjamin Wong |
| GIVEN NAMES | Benjamin |
| FAMILY NAME | Wong |
| SIGNATURE | WONG B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Department of Political Science at the National University of Singapore |
| ORCID | 0009-0003-5986-9333 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 21 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 9 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Disentangling Structural Breaks in Factor Models for Macroeconomic Data
We develop a projection-based decomposition to disentangle structural breaks in the factor variance and factor loadings. Our approach yields test statistics that can be compared against standard distributions commonly used in the structural break literature. Because standard methods for estimating factor models in macroeconomics normalize the factor variance, they do not distinguish between breaks of the factor variance and factor loadings. Apply…
Random Subspace Local Projections
We show how random subspace methods can be adapted to estimating local projections with many controls. Random subspace methods have their roots in the machine learning literature and are implemented by averaging over regressions estimated over different combinations of subsets of these controls. We document three key results: (i) Our approach can successfully recover the impulse response functions across Monte Carlo experiments representative of …
Understanding trend inflation through the lens of the goods and services sectors
We distinguish between the goods and services sectors in an unobserved components model of U.S. inflation. We find that prior to the early 1990s, both sectors contributed to volatility of aggregate trend inflation, while since then, this has been predominantly driven by the services sector, with the trend in goods inflation being essentially flat. We document that the large reduction in the volatility of the trend for goods inflation has been the…
School Leadership and Educational Change in Singapore
Intuitive and Reliable Estimates of the Output Gap from a Beveridge-Nelson Filter
The Beveridge-Nelson decomposition based on autoregressive models produces estimates of the output gap that are strongly at odds with widely held beliefs about transitory movements in economic activity. This is due to parameter estimates implying a high signal-to-noise ratio in terms of the variance of trend shocks as a fraction of the overall forecast error variance. When we impose a lower signal-to-noise ratio, the resulting Beveridge-Nelson fi…
The East Asian Challenge for Democracy
The rise of China, along with problems of governance in democratic countries, has reinvigorated the theory of political meritocracy. But what is the theory of political meritocracy and how can it set standards for evaluating political progress (and regress)? To help answer these questions, this volume gathers a series of commissioned research papers from an interdisciplinary group of leading philosophers, historians and social scientists. The res…
Political Legitimacy in Singapore
The long and successful marriage between high capitalism and modern authoritarianism in the case of Singapore poses a legitimacy puzzle. While the authoritarian regime has enjoyed and continues to enjoy broad-based support, the depth of its legitimacy appears to be shallow. This puzzle is generally explained by the primacy of an exchange relation between the regime and the people where the regime provides security and prosperity in return for leg…
The evolution of school leadership policy and practice in Singapore
The nature, quality and preparation of school leaders are once more at the centre of policy and practice decisions about education. But it is important to understand that school leadership, as both a historical and cultural construction, is intimately related to changing socio‐political realities. In the case of Singapore, the historical evolution from British colony to modern post‐industrial nation offered radically different contexts for educat…
War and Ghosts in Mozi's Political Philosophy
It is argued here that Mozi's critique of warfare in the chapter "Against Offensive War" ("Fei gong") cannot be fully understood without the arguments presented in the chapter "Explaining Ghosts" ("Ming gui"). For Mozi, the problem of war can only be resolved if the existence of providential ghosts can be proven. But he indicates in his arguments concerning the existence of ghosts that it is doubtful whether such a condition can be met. Consequen…
Hans Morgenthau's Anti-Machiavellian Machiavellianism
Political Legitimacy in Singapore
The long and successful marriage between high capitalism and modern authoritarianism in the case of Singapore poses a legitimacy puzzle. While the authoritarian regime has enjoyed and continues to enjoy broad-based support, the depth of its legitimacy appears to be shallow. This puzzle is generally explained by the primacy of an exchange relation between the regime and the people where the regime provides security and prosperity in return for leg…
Hans Morgenthau's Anti-Machiavellian Machiavellianism
The evolution of school leadership policy and practice in Singapore
The nature, quality and preparation of school leaders are once more at the centre of policy and practice decisions about education. But it is important to understand that school leadership, as both a historical and cultural construction, is intimately related to changing socio‐political realities. In the case of Singapore, the historical evolution from British colony to modern post‐industrial nation offered radically different contexts for educat…
Hans Morgenthau's Anti-Machiavellian Machiavellianism
War and Ghosts in Mozi's Political Philosophy
It is argued here that Mozi's critique of warfare in the chapter "Against Offensive War" ("Fei gong") cannot be fully understood without the arguments presented in the chapter "Explaining Ghosts" ("Ming gui"). For Mozi, the problem of war can only be resolved if the existence of providential ghosts can be proven. But he indicates in his arguments concerning the existence of ghosts that it is doubtful whether such a condition can be met. Consequen…
The evolution of school leadership policy and practice in Singapore
The nature, quality and preparation of school leaders are once more at the centre of policy and practice decisions about education. But it is important to understand that school leadership, as both a historical and cultural construction, is intimately related to changing socio‐political realities. In the case of Singapore, the historical evolution from British colony to modern post‐industrial nation offered radically different contexts for educat…
Political Legitimacy in Singapore
The long and successful marriage between high capitalism and modern authoritarianism in the case of Singapore poses a legitimacy puzzle. While the authoritarian regime has enjoyed and continues to enjoy broad-based support, the depth of its legitimacy appears to be shallow. This puzzle is generally explained by the primacy of an exchange relation between the regime and the people where the regime provides security and prosperity in return for leg…
The East Asian Challenge for Democracy
The rise of China, along with problems of governance in democratic countries, has reinvigorated the theory of political meritocracy. But what is the theory of political meritocracy and how can it set standards for evaluating political progress (and regress)? To help answer these questions, this volume gathers a series of commissioned research papers from an interdisciplinary group of leading philosophers, historians and social scientists. The res…
Intuitive and Reliable Estimates of the Output Gap from a Beveridge-Nelson Filter
The Beveridge-Nelson decomposition based on autoregressive models produces estimates of the output gap that are strongly at odds with widely held beliefs about transitory movements in economic activity. This is due to parameter estimates implying a high signal-to-noise ratio in terms of the variance of trend shocks as a fraction of the overall forecast error variance. When we impose a lower signal-to-noise ratio, the resulting Beveridge-Nelson fi…
School Leadership and Educational Change in Singapore
Understanding trend inflation through the lens of the goods and services sectors
We distinguish between the goods and services sectors in an unobserved components model of U.S. inflation. We find that prior to the early 1990s, both sectors contributed to volatility of aggregate trend inflation, while since then, this has been predominantly driven by the services sector, with the trend in goods inflation being essentially flat. We document that the large reduction in the volatility of the trend for goods inflation has been the…
Random Subspace Local Projections
We show how random subspace methods can be adapted to estimating local projections with many controls. Random subspace methods have their roots in the machine learning literature and are implemented by averaging over regressions estimated over different combinations of subsets of these controls. We document three key results: (i) Our approach can successfully recover the impulse response functions across Monte Carlo experiments representative of …
Disentangling Structural Breaks in Factor Models for Macroeconomic Data
We develop a projection-based decomposition to disentangle structural breaks in the factor variance and factor loadings. Our approach yields test statistics that can be compared against standard distributions commonly used in the structural break literature. Because standard methods for estimating factor models in macroeconomics normalize the factor variance, they do not distinguish between breaks of the factor variance and factor loadings. Apply…
Economics (7 works) · Political science (6 works) · Econometrics (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Politics (4 works) · Sociology (4 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · Mathematics (3 works) · Philosophy (3 works) · Political economy (3 works)