Singapore’s Policy Response to COVID-19

In this chapter, I describe Singapore’s economic policy response to the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak. Although the core interest in this discussion is economic, two companion attributes in the suite of Singapore’s policies feature prominently. The first concerns trust in political leadership; the second, confidence in technical competence and scientific expertise. I argue that it is the coming together of these three – economic policy, assured political leadership, and expert evidence-based domain knowledge – that has made for Singapore’s thus-far successful response to the COVID-19 outbreak.1 Unlike a routine economic shock, with an impact of perhaps up to a standard deviation on price and quantity, the introduction of the novel coronavirus into the national conversation brings into focus for market participants questions of heightened social fears, not least in the form of widespread health emergencies and a collapsed healthcare system. Will COVID-19 be just about disturbances to demand and supply, or will markets – organised systems of exchange – break down altogether?