Singapore Inc. Needs a Rethink, Economists Say

Singapore’s vaunted style of pragmatic, efficient government – credited with fueling the city-state’s meteoric rise to prosperity over the last four decades – may have lost some verve. As decades of rapid and largely equitable growth in this Asian Tiger give way to a widening gap between the rich and poor, the government needs to adopt a more activist stance that better supports citizens, said a paper, penned by six economists for the city-state’s Institute of Policy Studies. Tan Kim Song, an economics professor at SMU, is among the authors.