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Prof Ivan Png is Lim Kim San Professor and heads the Business Policy Department at NUS Business School. He is also Professor of Information Systems and Economics at NUS, and was Vice Provost (Graduate and Undergraduate Education) at NUS from 2001 to 2003.

 He has published widely in academic journals such as the American Economic Review, Journal of  Political Economy, and Management Science; and is the author/co-author of Managerial Economics, which has been published
in multiple editions.

His research focuses on the economics of intellectual property, privacy and pricing. He is an independent director of Hyflux Water Trust Management and Healthway Medical Corporation, and was a nominated MP (10th Parliament of Singapore) from 2005 to 2006.

Prof Ivan Png received his PhD from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
He can be contacted here.
 

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Over the years, various countries have changed their laws for or against parallel imports. Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and the U.S. have passed laws in favor of parallel imports while Canada,
Hong Kong, the Netherlands and Norway have revised laws against them.

In Singapore, the law has changed over the years against, and then for, parallel imports.

In collaboration with Professor Yeh-ning Chen of National Taiwan University, Lim Kim San Professor Ivan Png investigates the effect of changes in copyright laws to permit parallel imports on the retail price of music CDs.

Using data from the music CD industry, Prof Png researched whether legalizing parallel imports would affect music CD prices.

Euromonitor's Global Marketing Information Database (GMID) provided data on retail prices for music CDs. Other data studied included household income and CD player ownership.


The Findings

  A change in law allowing for parallel imports of music CDs corresponded with a price reduction of between US$0.86 to US$0.94. Given an average price of US$11.90, this translates to a 7.2% to 7.9% reduction in price.

  Growing household income raised demand and, hence, also increased the price of music CDs.