Singapore's Economic Development ― Retrospection and Reflections

Lim predicts that Singapore will make a delayed transition from the high-growth-but-low-productivity, middle-income manufacturing-based economy led by multinationals serving the global market that it was 40 years ago to a low-growth-but-higher-productivity, high-income services-based economy led by local enterprises serving a domestic and regional (as well as global) market. Four themes run through the essays contributed: first, almost all note the primacy of economic growth in government policy throughout the republic’s 50-year history; second, a related theme is the interconnection between different policy arenas which increased the effectiveness of individual policies; third, over 50 years there were shaped changes in policy direction, but within the same development model and institutional infrastructure; fourth, through all of Singapore’s development stages, the dominant role of the state in the economy was maintained and even expanded, contrary to the standard economic policy prescription that validates state intervention only for developing countries and in the case of market failure such as externalities. Annotation c2016 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)