Essays in applied microeconomics and public policy evaluation

• Main Author: CHEN, Yanying
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2018
• Subjects: applied micro-economics; non-contributory pensions; policy evaluation; hednoic pricing; transitional care; Behavioral Economics; Economics
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/etd_coll/150; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1148&context=etd_coll
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This dissertation comprises four papers that evaluate the effectiveness of public policies in Singapore. The first paper studies the non-tangible effect of a new non-contributory pension in Singapore on subjective well-being. The second investigates the effect of the same pension on labour supply, work expectations, private cash transfers and expenditure. The third evaluates a pragmatic randomised controlled trial of a new transitional care programme in a large quaternary hospital, while the fourth examines the effect of a large-scale housing upgrading programme on the resale prices of upgraded flats. Chapter 2 looks at the non-tangible effect of a new non-contributory pension (the Silver Support Scheme, or SSS) on subjective well-being. This chapter separately estimates the announcement and disbursement effects, and finds that SSS recipients experienced greater life satisfaction at announcement, and the difference between announcement and disbursement effects is not statistically different from zero. The improvement in life satisfaction appears to be driven by social, household income, and economic satisfaction. These effects are heterogeneous, with less financially prepared individuals exhibiting larger increases in well-being. Chapter 3 examines the effect of SSS on labour supply, work expectations, private cash transfers and expenditure, one year after its implementation. There is no evidence that receiving SSS payouts led to a fall in labour supply, work expectations or the receipt of private cash transfers – these outcome estimates are statistically insignificant and are either close to zero or positive. The expenditure estimates are positive, but unfortunately too imprecise for definitive conclusions. These results support Chapter 2’s findings that SSS improves the welfare of recipients as it has not led to substantial crowding out of private transfers or changes in labour market behaviour. Chapter 4 evaluates a pragmatic randomised controlled trial of a new transitional care programme (TCP), CareHub, in a large quaternary hospital. CareHub merges an assortment of existing transitional care services to protocolise post-discharge patient encounters, with the goal of improving patient outcomes and containing costs. In the six months after the index hospital admission, CareHub reduced the number of unplanned cardiac-related readmissions and total unplanned cardiac-related days in hospital by 39% and 56% respectively, which translate into a decrease of 0.23 readmissions and 2.2 days of hospitalisation. Net costs were reduced by about SGD1,300 per CareHub patient. It also reduced patient anxiety/depression and improved the quality of care transition. Chapter 5 estimates heterogeneous hedonic prices for different levels of housing space, by exploiting a unique space-adding project in Singapore that added a uniform amount of 6m2 of space to each existing housing unit regardless of the original size of the unit. This space adding was part of a large scale urban renewal and housing upgrading policy. The resale price of a housing unit increased by 7% on average, and the absolute extent of price appreciation varied significantly across the original size of the units. The total house price appreciation can be attributed to the combined effect of changes in housing space and average price per unit housing space.