published_or_final_version / Urban Planning / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

The Best PhD Thesis in the Faculties of Architecture, Arts, Business & Economics, Education, Law and Social Sciences (University of Hong Kong), Li Ka Shing Prize, 2006-2007. / published_or_final_version / abstract / Real Estate and Construction / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

M.Com. (Econometrics) / The main objective of this study was to formulate and evaluate a set of equations that adequately represents the South African monetary system. The analytical framework of the study is based on a theoretical examination of the process of formulating monetary policy. The main objectives of monetary policy was identified as price stability, a high rate of economic growth, exchange rate stability and an acceptable balance of payments situation. The achievement of these goals is dependent on the central bank's choice of target variables and policy instruments. The monetary system of South Africa was analysed by examining the various goals, target variables and policy instruments that constitute the South African Reserve Bank's monetary policy. The nature and impact of the new banking legislation which was introduced in South Africa on 1 February 1991 when the Deposit-taking Institutions Act of 1990 came into effect, was also discussed in the study. As a result of the high level of abstraction of the monetary phenomenon and the dynamic and interdependent nature of monetary policy, econometric and statistical techniques and criteria were used to evaluate certain aspects of the South African monetary system.

In this thesis, return to health is also estimated. We examine the effects of height on hourly wage, monthly earnings, working hours, and education level. Our results show that height has different causal impacts on women and men. Women benefit from height: taller women earn more, work less, and have more leisure time. However, taller men are more likely to land a job and work longer, largely because they are better endowed. Moreover, the positive effect of height on hourly wage for women is larger than that for men. In general, the findings have contributed new evidence to existing literature that estimates the return to health. / This thesis mainly investigates the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status. Specifically, it estimates the effects of family income and parental education on the health status and educational attainment of the next generation using unique twins data collected from urban China. By using twins strategy, we can largely control for unobservables, which may cause biases in estimations. Our results show that the positive correlations of family income and maternal education with child health are largely due to unobserved endowment and family background. However, family income and paternal education do have a positive effect on child education. Overall, our findings suggest that increasing family income and parental schooling do not help in improving child health. However, to reduce the educational gap of the next generation, redistributing income would prove beneficial. The design of government policies is dependent on the policy targets. / Xiong, Yanyan. / Advisers: Hongbin Li; Junsen Zhang. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: 2176. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest dissertations and theses, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

by Ma Chun Ho Eric. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 102-105). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / INTERNET ROUTING AND PRICING --- p.1 / ABSTRACT --- p.I / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS --- p.III / LIST OF FIGURES --- p.IV / LIST OF TABLES --- p.VI / CONTENTS --- p.VII / Chapter CHAPTER1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- What is Internet? --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Internet Routing and Pricing --- p.3 / Chapter 1.3 --- Overview of QoS Routing --- p.4 / Chapter 1.3.1 --- Classification of Routing --- p.6 / Chapter 1.3.2 --- Optimal Routing --- p.7 / Chapter 1.4 --- An Introduction to Internet Economics --- p.8 / Chapter 1.4.1 --- Internet Externality --- p.9 / Chapter 1.4.2 --- Current Pricing Practice --- p.10 / Chapter 1.4.3 --- Network Interconnection --- p.14 / Chapter 1.4 --- Organization of Thesis --- p.16 / Chapter CHAPTER2 --- Economic Theory for Interconnection Model --- p.18 / Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.18 / Chapter 2.2 --- Demand and Supply --- p.20 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Consumer Behavior --- p.20 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Demand Curve --- p.25 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Price Elasticity --- p.30 / Chapter 2.2.4 --- Estimation of Market Demand --- p.32 / Chapter 2.3 --- Market Structure --- p.33 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Competitive Firm --- p.34 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Monopoly --- p.35 / Chapter 2.3.3 --- Oligopoly --- p.35 / Chapter 2.4 --- Game Theory --- p.35 / Chapter 2.4.1 --- The Payoff Matrix of a game --- p.36 / Chapter 2.4.2 --- Nash Equilibrium --- p.37 / Chapter 2.4.3 --- Mixed Strategies --- p.38 / Chapter 2.4.4 --- Existence of Nash Equilibrium --- p.39 / Chapter 2.5 --- Summary --- p.39 / Chapter CHAPTER3 --- Problem Formulation Interconnection Network for Pricing and Routing in Internet --- p.40 / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.40 / Chapter 3.2 --- Problem Formulation --- p.41 / Chapter 3.2 --- Existence of NEP Interconnection Network --- p.46 / Chapter 3.3 --- "A ""Cookbook"" Procedure" --- p.53 / Chapter 3.4 --- Cookbook Examples --- p.54 / Chapter 3.5 --- Summary --- p.65 / Chapter CHAPTER4 --- Price Competition for Interconnection Models --- p.66 / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.66 / Chapter 4.2 --- Competitive Pricing of Parallel Networks --- p.66 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Model and Problem Formulation --- p.67 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Existence of Nash Equilibrium Point --- p.68 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Numerical Example and Properties --- p.71 / Chapter 4.3 --- Price Collusion for Serial Networks --- p.75 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Model and Problem Formulation --- p.75 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Existence of Nash Equilibrium Point --- p.77 / Chapter 4.3.3 --- Numerical Example and Properties --- p.79 / Chapter 4.4 --- Summary --- p.83 / Chapter CHAPTER5 --- Price Distortion for Series-Parallel Networks with Dominant Carriers --- p.85 / Chapter 5.1 --- Problem Motivation and Formulation --- p.85 / Chapter 5.2 --- Properties under NEP --- p.90 / Chapter 5.3 --- A Simple Simulation --- p.95 / Chapter 5.5 --- Summary --- p.98 / Chapter CHAPTER6 --- Conclusion --- p.99 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.102

Kwong, Wai Ming. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 34-35). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts also in Chinese.

Recursive estimation is an essential procedure in econometrics which appears in many applications when the underlying dataset or model is modi ed. Data arrive consecutively and thus already estimated models will have to be updated with new available information. Moreover, in many cases, data will have to be deleted from a model in order to remove their effect, either because they are old (obsolete) or because they have been detected to be outliers or extreme values and further investigation is required. The aim of this thesis is to develop numerically stable and computationally efficient methods for the recursive estimation of large-scale linear econometric models. Estimation of multivariate linear models is a computationally costly procedure even for moderate-sized models. In particular, when the model needs to be estimated recursively, its estimation will be even more computationally demanding. Moreover, conventional methods yield often, misleading results. The aim is to derive new methods which effectively utilise previous computations, in order to reduce the high computational cost, and which provide accurate results as well. Novel numerical methods for the recursive estimation of the general linear, the seemingly unrelated regressions, the simultaneous equations, the univariate and multivariate timevarying parameters models are developed. The proposed methods are based on numerically stable strategies which provide accurate and precise results. Moreover, the new methods estimate the unknown parameters of the modi ed model even when the variance covariance matrix is singular.

Complex nonlinear dynamic models with an intractable likelihood or moments are increasingly common in economics. A popular approach to estimating these models is to match informative sample moments with simulated moments from a fully parameterized model using SMM or Indirect Inference. This dissertation consists of three chapters exploring different aspects of such simulation-based estimation methods. The following chapters are presented in the order in which they were written during my thesis. Chapter 1, written with Serena Ng, provides an overview of existing frequentist and Bayesian simulation-based estimators. These estimators are seemingly computationally similar in the sense that they all make use of simulations from the model in order to do the estimation. To better understand the relationship between these estimators, this chapters introduces a Reverse Sampler which expresses the Bayesian posterior moments as a weighted average of frequentist estimates. As such, it highlights a deeper connection between the two class of estimators beyond the simulation aspect. This Reverse Sampler also allows us to compare the higher-order bias properties of these estimators. We find that while all estimators have an automatic bias correction property (Gourieroux et al., 1993) the Bayesian estimator introduces two additional biases. The first is due to computing a posterior mean rather than the mode. The second is due to the prior, which penalizes the estimates in a particular direction. Chapter 2, also written with Serena Ng, proves that the Reverse Sampler described above targets the desired Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) posterior distribution. The idea relies on a change of variable argument: the frequentist optimization step implies a non-linear transformation. As a result, the unweighted draws follow a distribution that depends on the likelihood that comes from the simulations, and a Jacobian term that arises from the non-linear transformation. Hence, solving the frequentist estimation problem multiple times, with different numerical seeds, leads to an optimization-based importance sampler where the weights depend on the prior and the volume of the Jacobian of the non-linear transformation. In models where optimization is relatively fast, this Reverse Sampler is shown to compare favourably to existing ABC-MCMC or ABC-SMC sampling methods. Chapter 3, relaxes the parametric assumptions on the distribution of the shocks in simulation-based estimation. It extends the existing SMM literature, where even though the choice of moments is flexible and potentially nonparametric, the model itself is assumed to be fully parametric. The large sample theory in this chapter allows for both time-series and short-panels which are the two most common data types found in empirical applications. Using a flexible sieve density reduces the sensitivity of estimates and counterfactuals to an ad hoc choice of distribution such as the Gaussian density. Compared to existing work on sieve estimation, the Sieve-SMM estimator involves dynamically generated data which implies non-standard bias and dependence properties. First, the dynamics imply an accumulation of the bias resulting in a larger nonparametric approximation error than in static models. To ensure that it does not accumulate too much, a set decay conditions on the data generating process are given and the resulting bias is derived. Second, by construction, the dependence properties of the simulated data vary with the parameter values so that standard empirical process results, which rely on a coupling argument, do not apply in this setting. This non-standard dependent empirical process is handled through an inequality built by adapting results from the existing literature. The results hold for bounded empirical processes under a geometric ergodicity condition. This is illustrated in the paper with Monte-Carlo simulations and two empirical applications.

Keung Kam-Yin. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-80). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Overview --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1 --- Income growth and pollution --- p.5 / Chapter 2.2 --- Environmental regulations and comparative advantage --- p.6 / Chapter 2.3 --- Welfare implications : Optimal policy in a second-best world --- p.9 / Chapter 2.4 --- Unemployment and the Environment --- p.11 / Chapter 2.5 --- Labor Union and International Trade --- p.12 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Tariffs and the Environment --- p.14 / Chapter 3.1 --- The model --- p.14 / Chapter 3.2 --- Resource Allocation -The effects of import tariffs --- p.19 / Chapter 3.3 --- National welfare --- p.23 / Chapter 3.4 --- Trade Liberalization --- p.26 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Tariffs，Unemployment and the Environment --- p.28 / Chapter 4.1 --- The model --- p.30 / Chapter 4.2 --- Resource Allocation - The effects of import tariffs --- p.33 / Chapter 4.3 --- National Welfare --- p.37 / Chapter 4.4 --- Trade Liberalization --- p.40 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- "Tariffs, Labor Unions and the Environment" --- p.42 / Chapter 5.1 --- The model --- p.43 / Chapter 5.2 --- Resource Allocation - The effects of import tariffs --- p.48 / Chapter 5.3 --- National Welfare --- p.52 / Chapter 5.4 --- Trade Liberalization --- p.54 / Chapter Chapter 6 --- Concluding Remarks --- p.57 / Appendix I --- p.60 / Appendix II --- p.64 / Appendix III --- p.67 / References --- p.72

Chan Chung Yan. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 57-59). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgement --- p.iv / Table of Contents --- p.v / List of Figures --- p.vi / Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2. --- An Illustration with a Small Open Economy Model / Chapter 2.1 --- Review of Obstfeld (1990) --- p.4 / Chapter 2.2 --- A Model with Socially-Determined Time Preference --- p.6 / Chapter 3. --- Small Open Economy Models with Socially-Determined Time Preference --- p.15 / Chapter 3.1 --- The Laursen-Metzler Effect --- p.16 / Chapter 3.2 --- Exchange-Rate Dynamics --- p.21 / Chapter 3.3 --- Capital Mobility and Devaluation --- p.28 / Chapter 4. --- Dynamics of a Small Open Economy Model with Non-Flat Bond Curves --- p.35 / Chapter 4.1 --- Downward-Sloping Bond Curve --- p.38 / Chapter 4.2 --- Upward-Sloping Bond Curve --- p.38 / Chapter 5. --- Investment and Saving in a Small Open Economy Model with Capital Accumulation / Chapter 5.1 --- The Model --- p.41 / Chapter 5.2 --- Productivity Shocks --- p.46 / Chapter 6. --- Saddle-Path Stability of a Closed Economy Growth Model --- p.49 / Chapter 7. --- Conclusion --- p.54 / References --- p.57 / Appendix --- p.60