Singapore
Singapore is the third richest country in the world, after Qatar, Luxembourg and before the USA which according to the World Atlas is ranked as ninth. Singapore is the biggest port located in Asia, it is located at the entrance of the Strait of Malacca and has historically been an ‘entrepot’ (gateway) to the its neighboring countries. Singapore is pivotal as it has access to South East Asia, Africa and China among other countries. According to the Atlas Media MIT, Singapore exports $272 Billion and imports $352 billion ranking as the 20th largest exporter economy. Consider the graph below, it shows how Singapore is a gateway to many other cities.
Thus if we think in terms of the concepts described in class, Singapore can be called this local bridge, that unites and allows global trade. If we were to divide one dollar along a graph that contained different countries such as the graphs created in class we would observe that according to multiple theories such as the Nash bargaining equilibrium Singapore would be allocated a very high value with respect to the nodes in its network, furthermore if we consider its size proportional to giants such as China and India this value becomes even more remarkable.
However, globalization and the increase interconnectedness between countries means that Singapore cannot solely rely on its geographical position to maintain its strength within the network. Indeed, whereas in the XIX and XX century Singapore might have functioned as local bridge and therefore the modelling described in paragraph above would be accurate, today it is just one of the possible gateways between the east and west.
What has allowed Singapore to maintain its position is the economic complexity of its trade, which corresponds to 1.73, making it the 8th most complex country. The economic complexity corresponds to the complexity of the goods that a country exports and trades. For instance, consider corn, it is relatively easy to produce in terms of labor, whereas making a car or machinery and appliances for specialized industry requires specific knowledge and labor. The way Singapore has maintained its position and strength is that it has invested in its infrastructure and increased the value of its trade, it is not providing a service that other neighboring countries can easily provide, making it still a local bridge for those specific but necessary equipment. So if we were to refer to model previously described in paragraph above, we would see that Singapore is no longer a local bridge between west and east for raw goods, since these goods can travel across different countries and are no longer limited to a mode of transport, however if we remodel the graph and think of the goods, we can see that as the specialization and complexity of good increases Singapore remains still a pivotal node.
Citation:
Hausmann, Ricardo, Cesar A. Hidalgo, Sebastián Bustos, Michele Coscia, Sarah Chung, Juan Jimenez, Alexander Simões, and Muhammed A. Yıldırım. The Atlas of Economic Complexity: Mapping Paths to Prosperity. Cambridge, MA: Center for International Development, Harvard U, 2011. Print.
“Singapore.” Worldmark Encyclopedia of Nations. . Encyclopedia.com. 20 Oct. 2016 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.
“The Richest Countries In The World.” The Richest Countries In The World. N.p., 19 Sept. 2016. Web. 21 Oct. 2016.
“OEC – Singapore (SGP) Exports, Imports, and Trade Partners.” N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2016.