Linda Lim is a Singaporean economist who was educated at Cambridge University, and then at Yale University and the University of Michigan, where she has made her career as a teacher and researcher. Her publications have ranged widely over topics related to Singapore's economic development. In addition, she has published on aspects of government–business relations and the role of the Chinese in Southeast Asia. The first of the 15 essays re-published in this volume was originally published in 1983, while the most recent date from 2015. The 1983 paper, originally published in Asian Survey, ‘Singapore's success: The myth of the free market economy’, argued that Singapore's economic success since it broke away from the Malaysian federation in 1965 was more the result of heavy state intervention than of free market policies. She pointed out that the Singapore government and bureaucracy were not rigidly doctrinaire in their policies. After the break with Malaysia, the government had to fashion a development strategy which would deliver benefits to a population which was for the most part still poor, growing fast, badly educated and living in overcrowded and unhealthy housing. Public housing was given high priority, as was attracting foreign investment into the manufacturing sector.

By the 1980s, senior politicians in the Peoples’ Action Party (PAP) were abandoning whatever commitment they might have had in the 1950s and 1960s to socialist values, and placing more weight on individual effort and achievement. While still a major actor in markets for land, capital and labour, the PAP government was also stating that excessive government involvement in social welfare might undermine individual motivation to work and to excel, and place a growing burden on the government budget. As life expectancy rose to levels comparable with high-income countries, and fertility declined, the government forced both employers and workers to save more for retirement and health expenses through mandatory contributions to the Central Provident Fund (CPF). Educational indicators improved, although as Lim points out in chapter 2, literacy rates and educational attainment were below those in South Korea and Taiwan. The 1985/86 recession which affected several high-performing economies across Asia led to a rethink of educational strategy in Singapore. The country was no longer able to compete in labour-intensive exports. But to upgrade to more technology-intensive industries which could compete on world markets, a labour force with post-secondary education in science and technology was needed. Over the next two decades there was considerable expansion in post-secondary education in both universities and polytechnics, with a strong emphasis on science and technology.

A recurring theme in several chapters is that Singapore's rapid growth since the 1980s has been in large part due to the continuing participation of foreign capital, foreign talent and labour in the economy. In spite of the increased emphasis on education, a strong domestic entrepreneurial class which is not dependent on government support has not emerged. In this sense, Singapore's growth has been less positive for the average Singaporean than for the international businesses and the global and local elites located in Singapore. Local entrepreneurs, and sectors not favoured by government have been crowded out, and denied the often lavish subsidies afforded to foreign firms in sectors such as information technology, bio-technology and pharmaceuticals. Income inequality remains high and out-migration of skilled labour is increasing. Lim admits that until now these trends have not really disturbed the political dominance of the PAP, but suggests that in future a new economic model may evolve, more oriented to the provision of services needed by Singapore's larger and much poorer neighbours.

The chapters in the second part of the book focus on labour and gender issues. Chapter 6, co-written with Pang Eng Fong, surveys the role of labour and productivity in Singapore's development model over a 50-year period (1965–2015). It examines the ‘growth with low productivity’ model which characterised the early decades of Singapore's growth. Popularised in the United States by Alwyn Young and Paul Krugman in the 1990s, the problem of high growth with low productivity was well known to Singaporean economists at least a decade earlier. Was it really a problem? Pang and Lim point out that the extensive growth model has been followed by Singapore, with some back-tracking, for most of the decades they survey. In recent years, there has been growing reliance on foreign labour for low-skilled jobs in domestic services, hospitality and construction. Pang and Lim suggest that the very success of the ‘global city’ model in former years is now limited by the lack of land and people, causing rising prices and growing disparities. In the following chapter, Lim argues that the growth in migrant labour from Indonesia and the Philippines working as domestic servants has allowed more Singaporean women to stay in the labour force and rise to more senior positions. But local women still account for the majority of workers in low income jobs, and a smaller proportion of high earners. It is likely that migrant workers are depressing wages for Singaporean workers with low skills, which in turn worsens income distribution.

The third section of the book includes several chapters on Southeast Asian business systems and the role of Chinese businesses across the region. Last but by no means least is a paper on the political economy of corruption in Southeast Asia, written with Aaron Stern and originally published in 2002. All these papers address important issues, not just in Singapore but also in the wider Southeast Asian context, and repay careful reading. Taken together these 15 papers are a tribute to Lim's formidable scholarship over a period of more than three decades and especially to her ability to question conventional wisdom and throw new light on important economic policy questions.