Ongoing Research Projects

Ongoing Research Projects

Research at the LKY School addresses real-world policy challenges and explores and advances theoretical concepts across four broad areas: Policy Studies, Public Management and Governance; Social Policy; International Relations and Global Governance; and Economic Development and Competitiveness.

Our research is supported by a variety of sources, including highly competitive external grants from local and international funders.

Social Policy

Academics in this cluster offer a unique Asian perspective and insights from Singapore on specific areas such as Education, Fertility, Health and Pension Reform.

Impacts of Climate Change on Migration, and Human Capital

Grant Period : Mar 2024 - Mar 2027

Faculty : TAN, Soo Jie Sheng

The main aim of this project is to examine the relationship between climate change and migration from several different angles. This study utilizes a year-county longitudinal dataset representative of China to investigate this relationship. Toward this end, I have three specific research objectives:

1. Establish an empirical relationship between climatic conditions, particularly temperature, and rural migration in China.
2. Uncover the preferred destinations of these migrants, and any other non-climate factors influencing their migration decisions.
3. Examine the role of climate adaptation measures, such as irrigation and machinery, in moderating the impact of climate change on rural outflow.

Grant Period : Oct 2023 to Jan 2026

Faculty : LEE, Zeewan

Population ageing is a persistent global phenomenon. Increasing longevity and declining fertility rates have shifted the age distribution of populations around the globe. With the proportion of individuals at least 60 years of age projected to grow to 40.1% by 2050, Singapore is one of the fastest ageing countries (United Nations, 2017). One way to deal with the shrinking tax-base for public programs to support the growing older population is to promote longer working-lives. Working at old age benefits not only the nations but also workers themselves by boosting their self-sustainability, financial security, and purposeful longevity (Maestas and Zissimopoulos, 2010; Munnell and Rutledge, 2013).

In Singapore, the share of employed older individuals aged 55-64 remains at 67.5% in 2020--slightly lower than that of other rapidly-aging countries such as South Korea (68.8%), or Japan (78.7%) (Ministry of Manpower, 2020; OECD, 2022). In line with the theme of ‘Enhancing Employment Outcomes through Adult Learning and Skills Development (Theme C),’ we ask the following questions: How do we improve the employability of older adults and promote purposeful longevity? Which CET and upskilling strategies can effectively increase their labour market outcomes, given the rapidly-changing labour market?

We propose three research endeavours that will help us answer the questions, detailed below. All three projects tackle the questions through the employers’ lens rather than workers’, and are expected to generate insights for revamping the CET for Singapore’s ageing population.

Grant Period : Sep 2023 to Sep 2028

Faculty : PARK, Jungyeon

While most public administration studies in the social equity area predominantly investigate how and in what ways public officials provide just and unbiased public services to the public, research on social inequities within public organizations is relatively understudied. Because of the shifting demographic and cultural landscape in recent decades, public organizations, as a “model” employer, have sought to foster diversity and inclusion and resolve inequities. However, despite the persistent efforts of policies and practices designed to promote equity in public administration, public sector inequities still abound.

This research project aims to understand 1) why we observe social inequities in public sector organizations and 2) how we can mitigate problems related to social inequities such as workplace culture, workplace discrimination, and harassment. The existing work in this area suggests that much can be learned about managerial strategies and practices through examinations of social inequity problems within public organizations. By focusing on both individual- and organizational-level strategies, this project will make significant contributions to provide a more comprehensive, accurate picture of social inequity problems.

Grant Period : Apr 2023 to Mar 2026

Faculty : LEONG, Ching

A strong scientific consensus suggesting climate change is driven largely by human activities (IPCC, 2018) makes it imperative to understand the motivations behind individuals’ environment-related behaviours (Huang et al., 2022). In particular, how do people react when they face a trade-off between self-interest and concern for the environment? Studies suggest that dishonest behaviour is widespread, with the underlying explanations converging on the psychological need to see ourselves as honest people in our own (Beaman et al., 1979) or others’ eyes (Yaniv et al., 2020). The question that remains is: Does this dishonesty extend to the environmental arena? If it does, do people lie for themselves, or for the environment?

This study adopts a between-subjects design with five treatment conditions that compares individuals’ willingness to share to different targets in a coin toss game. In the game, subjects toss a coin to decide the recipient of a monetary incentive between two beneficiaries: i) the subject and the environment; ii) the subject and a charity organization; iii) the subject and an unknown recipient (among the other participants); iv) the environment and an unknow recipient; and v) a charity and an unknown recipient. The subjects’ coin toss is not observed, but lying can be determined at the aggregate level – if no lying occurs, we can expect the ratio of beneficiaries to be 1:1 (0.5).

Comparing rates across different treatment conditions allows us to infer whether subjects are likely to lie for self-interest, for the environment, or for charity (general altruism). Subsequent follow-up studies examine the quantum by which participants would distribute the amount between the beneficiaries (to estimate relative importance) as well as the magnitude of the stakes (incentives provided) and impact of descriptive norms.


Grant Period : Mar 2023 - Mar 2026

Faculty : TAN, Soo Jie Sheng

Efforts to mitigation greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over the past two decades have mostly been unsuccessful (Stoddard et al., 2021). For instance, worldwide GHG emissions was at 33Gt of CO2-eq in 1994 – the year where the United Nations Framework for Climate Change (UNFCC) started, and increased at a rate of 1.6%/year to 49.8t in 2019. These increases are made despite yearly attempts at the UNFCC-led Conference of the Parties meetings to convince countries to jointly reduce their emissions. As such, there are now urgent calls from policymakers and scientists to re-imagine research and efforts toward reducing GHG emissions (Newell et al., 2021; Stern, 2021; Stern & Stiglitz, 2022; Stoddard et al., 2021). 

As earlier efforts to reduce GHG emissions were mostly focused on industries and the commercial sectors, a largely overlooked emissions source is individual and households. First, through daily activities, the residential sector accounts 11% of GHG emissions (Ritchie, Roser, & Rosado, 2020). Moreover, as final consumers, individuals are also indirectly responsible for a large portion of industrial and transportation emissions. In this regard, it is clear that for the world to attain net-zero emissions or to even substantially cut down emissions, individuals and households need to change current behaviors. 

To the extent that change individuals’ behaviors can play a key role in reducing GHG emissions, a seminal study by Wynes and Nicholas (2017) unveil a surprising conundrum. They computed the emissions mitigation potential of many behavioral changes (e.g., switching off lights, eating more plant-based food, etc..), found that governments, schools, and NGOs tend to encourage behaviors that are the least effective. The authors further concluded that by advocating less-effective behaviors, policymakers are running the risk of individuals’ satisficing behaviors, and missing out on more meaningful changes. 

Toward this end, the bigger question remains. Why is it that less-effective behaviors are instead encouraged? One plausible answer is that effective behavioral changes are also more costly for individuals to implement – an attribute that Wynes and Nicholas (2017) did not consider in their study. Indeed, using a laboratory experiment, Farjam, Nikolaychuk, and Bravo (2019) found that respondents are much more likely to contribute money to offset carbon emissions if the cost of contribution is low. 

As such, this research takes an important first step toward more complete understanding of individuals’ and households’ GHG emissions mitigation behaviors by computing the cost-effectiveness for a list of behaviors.