"虎"经济这一术语，是用来描述韩国、新加坡、中国香港和中国台湾的，这些经济体在20世纪60年代和70年代经历了快速增长和工业化。这四小虎与中国、日本等其他亚洲经济体有一系列共同特征，并开创了一种如今被视为特别"亚洲式"的经济发展模式，即出口导向型经济。这些国家和地区专注于生产面向工业化西方国家出口的商品，并通过政府政策抑制国内消费。

The ‘tiger’ economy was a term coined to describe South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan who underwent rapid growth and industrialisation in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The four Tigers share a range of characteristics with other Asian economies, such as China and Japan, and pioneered what has come to be seen as a particularly “Asian” approach to economic development, that of an export driven economy. These countries and territories focused on developing goods for export to the industrialised West and domestic consumption was discouraged through government policies.

通过仔细考察这些国家的发展历程可以发现,它们的发展在很大程度上是由中央主导的,依靠大量政府补贴和保护主义政策来实现。

A closer look at the development of such nations shows their development was a largely centrally driven affair with huge government subsidies and protectionist policies to achieve development.

1965年独立时，新加坡面临自然资源匮乏和国内市场狭小的局面。为此，新加坡政府于1968年设立了经济发展局，负责制定促进新加坡制造业发展的国家经济战略。新加坡政府通过大规模的公共住房计划，遏制了失业问题，提高了生活水平；同时采取了亲商业、亲外资、以出口为导向的经济政策，并结合国家主导的战略性政府所有企业投资。国家干预在引导新加坡经济转向高端电子、化工和服务业方面发挥了直接作用。新加坡政府还通过淡马锡相关公司（Temasek-linked companies，TLCs）指导经济发展。这些公司充当主权财富基金的角色。淡马锡相关公司主要设立于制造业领域，以商业实体的形式运作，其产值占国内生产总值的60%。

Upon independence in 1965, Singapore was faced with a lack of physical resources and a small domestic market. In response, the Singapore Government set up the Economic Development Board in 1968 where national economic strategies were formulated to promote Singapore’s manufacturing sector. The Singaporean administration curbed unemployment and raised the standard of living through the implementation of a large-scale public housing programme, alongside the adoption of a pro-business, pro-foreign investment, export-oriented economic policy combined with state-directed investments in strategic government-owned corporations. State intervention played a direct role in steering the Singapore economy towards high end electronics, chemicals and service industry. The Singapore government directed the economy through Temasek-linked companies (TLCs). These are companies which act as sovereign wealth funds. TLCs were established particularly in manufacturing, operating as commercial entities and accounted for 60% of GDP.

台湾的发展始于第二次世界大战之后。国民党政权（台湾的第一任领导者）制定了多项经济计划和政策，以发展这个小岛的经济。政府推行新的货币政策，此外，美国提供的巨额援助也助推了经济的迅速发展。政府以进口替代政策直接干预经济，将农业部门所获得的资源用于支持工业部门：以农产品出口换取外汇，进口工业机器，从而发展工业部门。政府提高关税、控制外汇并限制进口，以保护国内产业。到了1960年代，台湾的进口替代型工业面临国内市场饱和的问题，因此台湾的经济政策转向追求出口扩张。通过行政院长蒋经国推动的十大建设项目，以及亚洲第一个出口加工区的设立，为台湾重工业的发展奠定了基础。

Taiwanese development began after World War 2 when the Kuomintang regime (first leaders of Taiwan) established several economic plans and policies to develop the small islands economy. A new currency policy was initiated and in addition huge aid from the US aided the rapid development of the economy. The government directly intervened in the economy with an import substitution policy, taking what was obtained by the agriculture sector to give support to the industrial sector, trading agricultural product exports for foreign currency to import industrial machinery, thus developing the industrial sector. The government raised tariffs, controlled foreign exchange and restricted imports in order to protect domestic industry. By the 1960s, Taiwan's import exchange industry was faced with the problem of saturating the domestic market and consequently, the economic policy of Taiwan changed to pursue export expansion. Through the premier Chiang Ching-kuo's 10 major construction projects and the establishment of Asia’s first export processing zone the basis was laid for heavy industrial development in Taiwan.

韩国也采取了类似的中央政府干预战略。1961年，第一个五年计划由中央政府发起，此后还有许多个五年计划相继推出，因为只有中央政府而非自由市场，才有能力和资源在短时间内推动如此剧烈的变革。经济由一批被称为财阀（chaebol）的大型私营企业集团主导，同时还得到大量公营企业的支持，这些公营企业涉及铁、钢、公用事业、通信、化肥、化工及其他重工业等领域。政府通过一系列出口和生产目标引导私营产业，手段包括控制信贷、非正式的施压与劝说，以及传统的货币和财政政策。

South Korea pursued a similar strategy of central government intervention. In 1961 the first of many 5 year plans were initiated by central government, as only it rather than the free market had the capacity or resources to direct such drastic change in a short time. The economy was dominated by a group of large private conglomerates, known as chaebol, and was also supported by a significant number of public corporations in areas such as iron, steel, utilities, communications, fertilisers, chemicals, and other heavy industries. The government guided private industry through a series of export and production targets utilising the control of credit, informal means of pressure and persuasion, and traditional monetary and fiscal policies.

到1965年，中央政府通过将银行收归国有，并将农业合作社运动与农业银行合并，进一步扩大了对商业的控制。政府对所有机构信贷的直接控制，又进一步加强了其对商界的主导。1961年设立的经济企划院由一位副总理领导，负责分配资源、引导信贷流向，并制定韩国所有的经济计划。

Central government by 1965 extended its control over business by nationalising banks and merging the agricultural cooperative movement with the agricultural bank. The government’s direct control over all institutional credit further extended its command over the business community. The Economic Planning Board created in 1961, headed by a deputy prime minister allocated resources, directed the flow of credit, and formulated all of South Korea's economic plans.

亚洲四小龙的发展很大程度上依赖政府干预，这种干预发挥了重要作用，被视为其发展的支柱。台湾、新加坡和香港也采取了类似的策略，这清楚地表明，它们并非通过遵循正统的资本主义来实现发展，而是政府干预引导亚洲四小龙走到了今天的地位。这些"四小龙"经济体本质上是消费型经济，出口是其主要驱动力。

The Asian tigers developed with large aspects of government intervention, which played an important role and is seen as the backbone to their progress. Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong followed similar strategies and this clearly shows orthodox capitalism was not followed in order to develop but rather government intervention has steered the Asian tigers into the positions they are in today. The tiger economies are fundamentally consumer economies where exports are the driving engine.