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WHY have electronic road pricing in Singapore? How does the Government ensure that public housing is kept affordable and within the reach of the needy?
And for that matter, should health care be provided free to all Singaporeans?
Answers to these questions and more can now be found in the Ministry of Education's newest economics resource book.
Launched yesterday by the ministry and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, the book - Economics in Public Policies: The Singapore Story - aims to explain the economic concepts and principles behind key public policies in the country.
Authored by five educators with between 10 and 25 years of experience teaching A-level economics, the book serves as a useful supplementary text for A-level economics students and university undergraduates as well as a reference for readers with an interest in public policy.
It includes a foreword by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
The book was officially launched by Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam yesterday at the National University of Singapore's Faculty of Law in Bukit Timah Road.
Speaking to students and educators, Mr Tharman noted that about 85 per cent of Singapore's pre-university students study economics.
'This book provides a useful complement to your formal study, by setting out the economic reasoning behind public policy-making in Singapore,' he said.
Mr Tharman said he hopes the book 'will enhance the quality of discussion and discourse on policy-making'.
In Mr Lee's foreword, he said that all governments need to make policy choices - to tax or to borrow, what to spend on, whom to spend on and how to spend its money.
'In Singapore, we've tried to think about these issues systematically and consistently, explicitly considering the economic principles and logic involved,' he said.
He
added that this rational approach to microeconomic issues is a major reason
Singapore's economy is efficient, productive and prosperous.
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