FLEXIBILITY BETWEEN MARKET-LED AND GOVERNMENT-LED ECONOMIES

The 1997-98 East Asia financial crisis has raised doubts over the roles of two economic-systems: market-led and government-led economies. This paper deliberates on the two opposing economic systems: the choice of which are continually debated. There is a need for governments to look at economic flexibility and determine whether the countries affected by the financial crisis could reposition themselves fast enough. More specifically, this paper evaluates the performance of government-led economies such as those in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, and Indonesia when compared to market- led economies as practised in the United Kingdom, United States, and Japan. A compilation of an index method based on Angresano (1996) consisting of the quantitative performance measure for an identified country was computed over the average period 1980-2003. The findings of this study suggest that the approaches to a market-led or government-led economy is a matter of degree and are not mutually exclusive.