Singapore: Market Reform Success

Abstract

This chapter examines how party system structures shaped capital market reforms in tandem with internal party organisations in Singapore from the late 1980s to the late 2000s. The central claim is that the highly concentrated party system and the centrally and coherently organised PAP combined to both generate strong incentives for political elites to pursue public-regarding reform policies and enable them to initiate and implement these policies decisively and resolutely. The first section briefly describes the development of policies and regulations concerning the capital market in Singapore prior to the late 1980s to provide a foundation for examining market changes and reforms over the ensuing two decades. The second section explores the process through which major market reforms were enacted from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, and the third section focuses on further and more significant reforms following the Asian financial crisis of 1997–1998. The fourth and final section concludes.