How S'pore has grown - from a policy perspective

LAST year, 17 economists, mostly Singaporean academics, got together to prepare 13 papers for an SG50 Special Issue of the Singapore Economic Review, that I guest edited. This has since been republished as a book, Singapore's Economic Development: Retrospection and Reflections.

We look at Singapore's economic development of the past 50 years from different policy perspectives: governance, lessons for other developing countries, role of the state, monetary policy, public financial management, labour and productivity, trade and foreign direct investment, demographics and population, housing, the Central Provident Fund (CPF), poverty and social welfare and energy and the environment. And we reflect on what lies ahead for the economy.

There are several common themes among our papers. The dominant theme is the primacy of economic growth in driving social as well as economic policies. This was maintained throughout our 50-year history, even after per capita gross domestic product (GDP) had risen well beyond the level at which growth tends to slow down in developed countries.