06
February
2018
|
23:15
Asia/Singapore

Seen and heard this week

Dr Weina Zhang, Senior Lecturer at NUS Business, discussed the results of a recent study she carried out with colleagues at NUS that analysed detailed credit reports in order to study their informational value in sovereign credit default swap spreads. The findings, shared in a Forbes commentary on 30 January, highlighted the value of such reports for international investors gauging the creditworthiness of rated countries, as well as the need for rating agencies to work harder to gain public trust given a dip in public confidence following the 2009 Euro crisis.

 

In an opinion piece published in The Straits Times on 1 February, Assistant Professor Marcel Bilger from the Health Services and Systems Research Programme at Duke-NUS Medical School shared how health insurance requires a fine balance between coverage and expenditure so as not to overburden patients or encourage overspending. Opposing the idea of zero co-payments which may induce overconsumption, he said that good insurance design retains co-payments while focusing on value-based care.

 

In another commentary on 1 February published in TODAY, Dr Cecilia Tortajada, Senior Research Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy spoke about Singapore’s water sustainability efforts. While sharing examples of how technology can help with the increasing demand for clean water in resource-scarce Singapore, she emphasised the need to do more in terms of social conditioning to get residents to do their part for water conservation.

 

Read more about the NUS community in the news.