Taiwan's economy is way ahead of Singapore because of
Democracy.
Exerpts from Taipei Times:
As for Singapore, its economic growth potential is between 4
percent and 6 percent, data from its trade and industry department
shows, equivalent to Taiwan's 5 percent. However, Singapore's
distribution of income has worsened considerably: its Gini
coefficient, an indicator of distribution of wealth between 0 and
1, where higher numbers indicate greater disparity, outstripped the
US in 2006 and reached 0.485 last year.
Democracy and economics is two seperate thing. If democracy is
so important to economy, then you might as well say china's economy
isn't improving due to democracy.
And bear in mind that in the early years of taiwan's economic
development, they are under MARTIAL LAW.
Moreover, Gini cefficient cannot be said to be without
problems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient#Disadvantages_of_Gini_coefficient_as_a_measure_of_inequality
Disadvantages of Gini coefficient as a measure of
inequality
As one result of this criticism, in addition to or in
competition with the Gini coefficient entropy measures are
frequently used (e.g. the Theil Index and the index of Atkinson). These measures attempt to
compare the distribution of resources by intelligent agents in the
market with a maximum entropy random distribution,
which would occur if these agents acted like non-intelligent
particles in a closed system following the laws of statistical
physics.
And in general, using the GDP per captia, taiwan is still lower
than us.
From the CIA factbook, singapore's growth rate is still higher
than Taiwan. Same goes to our GDP per captia.
7.5% (2007 est.)
$48,900 (2007 est.)
5.5% (2007 est.)
$29,800 (2007 est.)
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/tw.html
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/sn.html
