This paper investigates (for the first time) the impact of the economic policy uncertainties of Singapore and its major trading partners on Singapore’s industrial production and exports. The study uses monthly data from January 2003 to August 2019, correlation analysis, spillover index analysis and a structural vector autoregression model to perform the investigation. Using the newly invented Singaporean economic policy uncertainty index, the research finds that it is a good predictor of industrial production. It is found that, in general, uncertainty depresses Singapore’s industrial production and exports. The paper suggests that policymakers promote new entrepreneurship and build a skilled labor force to minimize the impact of uncertainty on the economy of Singapore.

Having achieved an export-led exponential economic growth, Singapore remains vulnerable to both natural disasters and economic crises. However, the economic repercussions and policy responses to extreme events for an island nation like Singapore are not as widely known or studied. This paper illustrates that impacts of a health disaster [Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)] and an economic crisis [Global Financial Crisis (GFC)] on the Singapore economy based on selected indicators of the financial market, macroeconomy and property sector. Crises of different nature entail different policy responses of different scales and this is highlighted in the policy responses to both SARS and GFC toward economic recovery. In the case of SARS, there were preventive measures toward diseases but no reactive measures as the SARS virus was a new strain. For GFC, the policy measures were simply reactive as preventive measures failed to regulate the financial markets effectively. Our paper makes the case that the impacts of such extreme events are systemic as they affect all aspects of Singaporean society and that, moreover, the island nation is more vulnerable to these shocks than is currently acknowledged.