(Sept 15): Singapore said it’s reviewing a research paper that alleged the city state’s civil servants disproportionately bought homes near planned subway stations that weren’t yet publicly announced to generate “meaningful private gains”.

The Public Service Division takes any integrity concerns “extremely seriously”, a spokesperson said in response to Bloomberg News’ queries. 

The division is reviewing the data and methodology used in the US-based National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, and will refer it to the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau if there is a material basis to do so, the spokesperson said.

Singapore consistently ranks among one of the least corrupt countries in the world, according to Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.

The study’s authors wrote that the property purchases were mostly made by mid-level officials and agencies connected to rail planning one to two years before public announcements. The transactions were also carried out by the officials’ relatives, making them “consistent with information leakage”, according to the research paper published this month.

“Singapore, widely regarded as one of the world’s least corrupt countries, provides a sharp setting to examine whether decades of successful anti-corruption enforcement can produce self-sustaining norms,” the researchers wrote. “The findings suggest that even in high-integrity societies, social norms may not be sufficiently self-sustaining to maintain a low-corruption equilibrium without continued formal enforcement.”

The researchers also noted in the report’s acknowledgments that the working paper “benefitted immensely from discussions” with individuals including Harvard University Professor of Economics Li Shengwu, the estranged nephew of Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong. 

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