TY - JOUR TI - Web 2.0 Tool Recommendations for Teachers AU - Negreiros, Joao Garrott Marques AU - Lei, Weng Chi T2 - International Journal of Innovation and Research in Educational Sciences DA - 2019/// PY - 2019 VL - 6 IS - 4 SN - 2349–5219 UR - http://ijires.org/administrator/components/com_jresearch/files/publications/IJIRES_1577_FINAL.pdf Y2 - 2021/02/04/03:50:55 ER - TY - THES TI - Three Essays on Foreign Trade, Offshoring and International Rivalry AU - Lei, Weng Chi AB - This dissertation consists of three essays, covering the topics of foreign trade, offshoring and international rivalry. In particular, Chapter 1 analyzes the strategic capacity allocation of an international oligopoly. Because a line of products shares specific inputs that are fixed in the short run, a multiproduct oligopolist faces a capacity constraint in the production. Not being able to produce the desirable quantities to meet demand, an oligopolist strategically allocates its capacity among different products against its rival. If the market were monopolistic, a firm would mainly concern the effective profitability of a product when allocating its capacity and when responding to a capacity expansion. Identical duopolists that compete in a Cournot fashion should have identical capacity allocation. However, in a sequential game, while the Stackelberg leader allocates all its scarce capacity towards the more profitable product, the follower should still allocate some capacity towards the unprofitable product. This matches the observation that Boeing, the incumbent in the large commercial aircrafts (LCA) industry, specializes in smaller planes, while Airbus allocates resources more evenly towards both superjumbo planes and smaller planes. Chapter 2 provides an explanation to the observation that international oligopolists, which are similar in many ways (subject to the same state of technology, have equal market shares, etc.), may engage in significantly different degrees of offshoring. Different from previous studies, which considered fragmentation to be affected by global exogenous factors only, this essay sees fragmentation as an endogenous variable. A firm can invest on R&D of its own fragmentation technology to enable certain degrees of fragmentation, so that offshoring of those fragmented subparts can be achieved. An important implication of endogenous fragmentation is that the government now has a policy alternative to export subsidy. Very often, when export subsidy is prohibited under an FTA, a government has incentive to subsidize fragmentation of a firm, which can stimulate both export and offshoring. Chapter 3 investigates Macao's and Singapore's questionable goal to diversify among two tourism services—gambling and convention. Macao has a cost advantage in gambling while Singapore has a cost advantage in convention. When a city operates as a regional monopoly, the simple multiproduct model shows that it is optimal for a city to diversify in response to an expansion in the markets of the tourism services. If the two cities operate as a Cournot duopoly instead, there will be a higher degree of product differentiation between the cities. Yet, both cities diversify more when there is a market expansion. On the other hand, Osaka is a potential entrant. The three-city model shows that if Osaka's relative cost of producing convention is even lower than Singapore’s, both Macao and Singapore will produce greater proportions of gambling compared to the two-city case. In general, Macao and Singapore respond to Osaka’s rivalry by strategizing their product mixes to avoid head-on competition with Osaka. CY - Ann Arbor DA - 2018/// PY - 2018 SP - 140 LA - English M3 - Ph.D. in Economics PB - University of Washington UR - https://ezproxy.usj.edu.mo:2132/dissertations-theses/three-essays-on-foreign-trade-offshoring/docview/2034397107/se-2?accountid=143153 DB - ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global KW - 0501:Economics KW - Economics KW - Foreign trade KW - International rivalry KW - Offshoring KW - Social sciences KW - Strategic capacity allocation ER - TY - CHAP TI - The Road to Service Export Diversification: Gambling and Convention in Macao AU - Lei, Weng Chi T2 - Economics and Finance Readings: Selected Papers from Asia-Pacific Conference on Economics & Finance, 2019 A2 - Lau, Evan A2 - Simonetti, Biagio A2 - Trinugroho, Irwan A2 - Tan, Lee Ming AB - This book is a compilation of the best papers presented at the APEF 2019 conference which was held on 25th and 26th July 2019 at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront in Singapore. With a great number of submissions, it presents the latest research findings in economics and finance and discusses relevant issues in today's world. The book is a useful resource for readers who want access to economics, finance and business research focusing on the Asia-Pacific region. DA - 2020/// PY - 2020 DP - www.springer.com LA - en PB - Springer Singapore SN - 9789811529054 UR - https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811529054 Y2 - 2021/02/04/03:38:42 ER - TY - CONF TI - Nowcasting Gross Domestic Product and Gross Gaming Revenue of Macau: a Theoretical and Conceptual Framework AU - Chau, Manuel AU - Lei, Weng Chi T2 - The 5th Academia-Industry Exchange Institute of International Business & Governance (IIBG) Symposium 2021 AB - This paper aimed to build up the theorical and conceptual understanding of future forecasting study of Macau’s GDP and Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) by co-movement of economic indicators. Macau GDP and GGR showed co-movements with a number of time series economic indicators, including China’s exports and imports, China’s manufacturing PMI, non-manufacturing PMI, China's electricity production growth, share price of some Macau’s gaming operators, etc. These time series data can be found in statistics departments of China, Macau and Hong Kong, stock exchanges, and international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the World Trade Organization (WTO). Burns and Mitchell’s study in 1946 identified co-movements between economic indicators and being further carried out and developed leading, coincident and lagging indicators, which is essential for future econometric models and nowcasting techniques developments to study these co-movements. In particular, with the proper application of nowcasting techniques, future studies can exploit the data of leading and coincident economic indicators to forecast Macau’s GDP and GGR within an acceptable level of error. Since Macau is a “monotown,” where the gaming revenue makes a significant contribution to the economy. The forecasting of gaming revenue is crucial as it aids the gambling and tourism industries in preparing supply and provides information to policymakers to plan for the near future. This research also contributes to understand Macau’s economy by investigating its internal and external economic variables. C1 - Hong Kong DA - 2021/12/01/ PY - 2021 DP - ResearchGate SP - 113 EP - 136 ST - Nowcasting Gross Domestic Product and Gross Gaming Revenue of Macau UR - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/362831464_Nowcasting_Gross_Domestic_Product_and_Gross_Gaming_Revenue_of_Macau_a_Theoretical_and_Conceptual_Framework ER - TY - SLIDE TI - Impacts of Policies and Infrastructure on the Usage of Electric Vehicles in Macao T2 - 2023 Symposium on Environmental Science and Sustainable Technology (ESST2023) A2 - Weng Chi Lei A2 - Tai, On Teng CY - University of Saint Joseph, Macao, China DA - 2023/// PY - 2023 LA - en M3 - Conference UR - https://ise.usj.edu.mo/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/ESST2023-AbstractBooklet_2023-10-19-lres.pdf Y2 - 2024/01/14/15:33:55 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Impacts of Central Bank Digital Currency on Regional Economic Integration: Evidence from the Greater Bay Area of China AU - Lei, Weng Chi AU - Wang, Xinru T2 - The Chinese Economy AB - An increasing number of countries have launched their central bank digital currencies (CBDC) in recent years, but the economic impacts of CBDC adoption are underexplored. To empirically assess how CBDC adoption influences regional economic integration, this paper investigates the Greater Bay Area, where China carried out one of its first digital renminbi pilot programs. The Greater Bay Area provides a good example because the growing acceptance of digital renminbi in the area can potentially mitigate transaction costs and risks due to the exchange rate volatility of the Chinese renminbi, Hong Kong dollar, and Macao pataca. CBDC adoption can lead to greater real and financial integrations by facilitating cross-border trade in goods and services. This paper evaluates deviations from uncovered interest rate parity, purchasing power parity, and real interest rate parity across Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao based on monthly interest rate and price data from January 2016 to December 2022. The time series have mean values near zero, which validate the parity conditions and indicate high degrees of financial, real, and economic integrations. The Markov regime-switching regression model identifies three regimes: (1) pre-Covid, (2) post-Covid, and (3) post-CBDC. The Covid-19 outbreak brought lower integration and stability, but the launch of the CBDC restored some of the pre-Covid integration and stability. Regimes 1 and 2 are persistent, and transitions from Regime 3 back to Regime 1 are probable. Hence, this study finds evidence that CBDC adoption improves regional economic integration in the short and long run. DA - 2024/// PY - 2024 DO - 10.1080/10971475.2024.2333124 DP - Taylor and Francis+NEJM VL - 0 IS - 0 SP - 1 EP - 14 SN - 1097-1475 ST - Impacts of Central Bank Digital Currency on Regional Economic Integration UR - https://doi.org/10.1080/10971475.2024.2333124 Y2 - 2024/03/28/06:13:24 KW - Central bank digital currency KW - Greater Bay Area KW - digital renminbi KW - economic integration KW - financial integration ER - TY - JOUR TI - Fintech Adoption: A Study of Users in the Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin (China) AU - Weng, Chi Lei AU - Lampo, Alessandro T2 - INTI JOURNAL AB - Intended as an economic and development hub, the Hengqin Cooperation Zone aims to foster collaboration and integration between mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macao, serving as a platform for economic development and innovation among the three regions. The zone's development has increased demand for financial services, often offered through fintech. There is, however, a lack of interoperability between the fintech services currently used in Macao and Hengqin. This may hinder Macao users' adoption of the technology. Thus, our research objective is to identify the factors determining Macao residents' adoption of fintech services in the area and provide insights for service providers, developers, and policymakers. A framework based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was used for this purpose. The responses of 103 Macao residents provided evidence that ease of use significantly and positively impacts the usefulness of the technology. This in turn influences attitudes towards fintech usage. Subjective norms and perceived behavioral control positively impact fintech adoption intentions. The fintech industry and the governments of Macao and Hengqin can work on improving technology's ease of use and usefulness. They can also promote them to Macao users, and provide the resources required for better access to fintech in the zone DA - 2024/03/26/ PY - 2024 DP - eprints.intimal.edu.my VL - 2024 IS - 02 SP - 1 EP - 6 LA - en SN - e2600-7320 ST - Fintech Adoption UR - https://intijournal.intimal.edu.my Y2 - 2024/03/28/06:15:11 ER - TY - CONF TI - Endogenous fragmented technology and optimal offshoring in large civil aircraft production AU - Lei, Weng Chi T2 - The 9th Annual Conference of the Asia-Pacific Economic Association AB - This paper is motivated by two observations in the large civil aircraft (LCA) industry. (1) Boeing and Airbus are significantly different in the degree of offshoring. (2) The degree of offshoring also changes among different aircraft models. To offer an explanation, this paper focuses on issues related to fragmentation. Existing literature has established the tie between fragmented technology and offshoring. However, it is assumed that production can be fragmented readily and at no cost; and only exogenous global economic factors have impact on the degree of fragmentation. This model distinguishes itself from others by incorporating endogeneity in fragmentation. A final-good firm can spend on R&D specifically for its own fragmented technology. As a result, the final-good firm can optimally choose the portion of components to be offshored. A strategic trade policy model is used to show that the degree of offshoring depends on the firm's own cost of production, the host country's cost of production, the global state of technology as well as the government trade policies. In particular, export subsidy and subsidy on R&D of fragmented technology are shown to be policy substitutes. Keywords: Fragmentation; Offshoring; Outsourcing; Aircraft; Export subsidy; R&D subsidy; Boeing; Airbus JEL classification: F12; F13; F23; L13 C1 - Osaka, Japan DA - 2013/07/28/ PY - 2013 DP - ResearchGate UR - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369091812_Endogenous_fragmented_technology_and_optimal_offshoring_in_large_civil_aircraft_production ER - TY - CONF TI - Economic Integration in the GBA: a Price-Based Assessment of Real and Financial Integration in the Greater Bay Area AU - Lei, Weng Chi AU - Wang, Xinru T3 - ICEME 2022 AB - The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area (GBA) was first conceptualized in 2016, which aimed to facilitate trade and finance liberalization among the three regions. The trade and financial environment of the GBA is unique. Due to the “one country, two systems” principle, Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau are considered to be trading partners bounded by WTO rule, but bilateral free trade agreements have been signed between Mainland China and Hong Kong, and between Mainland China and Macau, but not between Hong Kong and Macau. Furthermore, each of the three regions circulates a local currency subject to its own exchange rate policy, with Hong Kong Dollar and Macau Pataca currently pegged to the US Dollar. These affect the mobility of trade and capital flows in the area. Hence, this paper applies the widely-used price-based approach due to Cheung et al. [5] to analyze the degrees of real and financial integration in the GBA based on interest rates, exchange rates, and price indexes data from January, 2016 to November, 2021. The real interest differential (RID), uncovered interest differential (UID) and the deviation from purchasing power parity (PPD) between each regional pair have means that are statistically and economically close to zero, implying high real and financial integration in the GBA. The unit root tests for stationarity also confirm that the time series are mean-reverting, so the economic integration in the GBA in the long run is foreseeable. C1 - New York, NY, USA C3 - 2022 13th International Conference on E-business, Management and Economics DA - 2022/11/30/ PY - 2022 DO - 10.1145/3556089.3556112 DP - ACM Digital Library SP - 198 EP - 203 PB - Association for Computing Machinery SN - 978-1-4503-9639-4 ST - Economic Integration in the GBA UR - https://doi.org/10.1145/3556089.3556112 Y2 - 2023/03/14/00:00:00 KW - Economic development policy KW - Economic integration KW - Financial Integration KW - Greater Bay Area ER - TY - CONF TI - Digital Renminbi: Impacts on Economic Integration of the Greater Bay Area AU - Lei, Weng Chi AU - Wang, Xinru A2 - Lau, Evan A2 - Brahmana, Rayenda Khresna A2 - Tan, Lee Ming AB - The degree of economic integration in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area (GBA), as reflected in the mobility of trade and capital flows, has been strengthened by free trade agreements, but obstacles including border effects, capital controls, differences of exchange rate systems and inadequate cross-regional coordination remain. Digital renminbi (e-CNY) has been tested in Shenzhen, a core GBA city since April 2020. If e-CNY is adopted in the GBA, the area will effectively become a single currency zone. Whether the GBA constitutes an “optimum currency area” (OCA) depends on its degree of economic integration. This paper computes real interest rate differential (RID), uncovered interest rate differential (UID) and deviation from purchasing power parity (PPD) of each regional pair based on data of interest rates, exchange rates and price indexes from 2016M2 to 2022M7. All UID, PPD and RID series have means within about 1 percent point from 0, indicating high degrees of financial integration, real integration and economic integration. With the exception of Guangdong-Macau RID, all series are stationary, implying mean-reverting behavior. Hence, the parities are expected to hold both in the short run and in the long run, which is a condition for an OCA in the GBA. Furthermore, the regression analysis finds that the test launch of e-CNY in Shenzhen (adjusted for the COVID-19 outbreak) has significant impacts on all RIDs, Guangdong-Macau PPD and Hong Kong-Macau PPD. With merely two and a half years of test launch, the introduction of e-CNY already had impacts on overall economic integration in the GBA. C1 - Singapore C3 - Economics and Finance Readings DA - 2023/// PY - 2023 DO - 10.1007/978-981-99-1979-6_1 DP - Springer Link SP - 1 EP - 14 LA - en PB - Springer Nature SN - 978-981-9919-79-6 ST - Digital Renminbi KW - Economic development policy KW - Economic integration KW - Exchange rate regime KW - Financial integration KW - Greater Bay Area KW - Optimum currency area ER - TY - CONF TI - COVID-19: Short-Run Impacts of the Pandemic on the Integrated Resort Oligopoly of Macao AU - Lei, Weng Chi T2 - The International Workshop Tourism and Hospitality Management (IWTHM2021) AB - Objective: As a world tourist destination, Macao is inevitably under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the market of integrated resorts in Macao are shared by only a few casino concessionaries, together forming an oligopoly. While the firms attempted to adjust price, quantity and quality of their hotel services in response to the pandemic, they could not overlook the strategic interactions with other players in the market. Hence, this paper aims to investigate the possible impact of the pandemic on the oligopolistic strategies in the integrated resort market in Macao. Methodology: Application of a theoretical model of differentiated oligopoly to this six-firm case shows that price differences across firms depend on their quality differentiation. In order to analyze these price differences empirically, this paper collects data of hotel room rates of the integrated resorts from November, 2019 to mid-August, 2020, covering the periods before and after the outbreak of COVID-19. Originality: In the existing literature, there is a lack of studies of the oligopoly in the hospitality industry of Macao. Furthermore, the effect of COVID-19 is still ongoing, so this present paper is one of the first to perform such analysis. Results: The regression of each of the hotel price differentials on the COVID-19 dummy variable shows that COVID-19 has statistically significant impacts on almost all the price differentials. Intuitively, MGM and Wynn were in the high-price segment before and after the outbreak, while other firms switched positions in the low-price segment during the pandemic. One obvious downstream movement was by Conrad. According to the proposition derived from the theory, these imply that COVID-19 should have significant impact on the quality differentiation of the firms. Practical implications: The results are in line with the observations that the integrated resorts have rolled out staycation packages according to preferences of local residents. These quality adjustments observed in Macao’s hospitality industry currently only involved variable inputs rather than fixed inputs of production; therefore, the impact of COVID-19 should be seen as short-term effects. Keywords: Covid-19; Differentiated oligopoly; Hospitality industry; Hotel room rate; Oligopolistic market structure; Pricing strategy. DA - 2021/05/01/ PY - 2021 DP - ResearchGate SP - 121 EP - 137 ST - COVID-19 UR - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/362831315_COVID-19_Short-Run_Impacts_of_the_Pandemic_on_the_Integrated_Resort_Oligopoly_of_Macao ER -