A Resurgent East Asia – Navigating a Changing World
REGIONAL ECONOMIC STUDIES PROGRAMME SEMINAR
About the Seminar
Slowing growth in global trade and shift in its patterns, rapid technological change, and evolving economic circumstances within countries all present challenges to sustaining productivity growth, fostering inclusion, and enhancing state effectiveness in East Asia. A Resurgent East Asia is about how policymakers across developing East Asia will need to adapt their development model to effectively address these challenges in the coming decade and sustain the region’s remarkable development performance.
About the Speakers
Andrew Mason is Acting Chief Economist for the East Asia and Pacific Region of the World Bank. Between September 2017 and December 2018, he also served as Lead Economist in the Office of the Chief Economist for East Asia and the Pacific. Just prior to joining the office of the Chief Economist, Mr Mason served for 5 years as Manager of the Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice for Europe and Central Asia. During his career at the World Bank, Mr Mason has worked on a range of issues, including poverty reduction, gender equality, labor, and social protection. He is co-author of several World Bank flagship studies. In addition to A Resurgent East Asia: Navigating a Changing World, these studies include the East Asia companion to the 2012 World Development Report, Toward Gender Equality in East Asia and the Pacific, the Latin America and Caribbean regional study, Informality: Exit and Exclusion, and the World Bank Policy Research Report, Engendering Development – Through Gender Equality in Rights, Resources, and Voice. Mr Mason has also served as an Adjunct Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University.
Mr Mason holds a Ph.D. in applied economics from Stanford University and a Master of Public Policy (MPP) from Harvard University.
Jyoti Shukla is Director of the World Bank in Singapore. The Singapore Hub comprises of 200 staff form the World Bank, IFC, and MIGA, and focuses primarily on improving infrastructure services and promoting smart urban development through public-private sector partnerships.
Ms Shukla joined the World Bank as a Young Professional in 1994 and has since held multiple positions, largely in the area of public-private partnerships in infrastructure. Her most recent position in the Bank Group has been as Director of the Global Water Practice.
Ms Shukla holds masters’ degrees from the Delhi School of Economics and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. Before joining the World Bank, she held a faculty position at Princeton University and worked with a development consulting firm in India.
About the Panellists
Simon Baptist is the Chief Economist at the EIU. He is responsible for providing intellectual leadership for the EIU’s coverage and ensuring that economic and political analysis and forecasts are the best available for international decision-makers, and for managing a global team of economists, consultants and editors. As Asia Managing Director for the EIU, he provides strategic management for the consultancy, research and executive briefing services of The Economist Group in Asia to assist governments to design and assess the impact of public policy and companies to drive successful strategy and operational performance in Asia.
Mr Baptist has a doctorate in Economics from Oxford University, where his research investigated productivity and technology in emerging market manufacturing firms, and degrees in Economics and Science from the University of Tasmania.
Manu Bhaskaran is Director of Centennial Group International and the Founding Director and Chief Executive Officer of Centennial Asia Advisors. Mr Manu has more than 30 years of expertise in economic and political risk assessment and forecasting in Asia. Before joining the Centennial Group, he was Chief Economist for Asia of a leading international investment bank and managed its Singapore-based economic advisory group. Mr Manu is a well-regarded commentator on Asian financial and economic affairs, and has regular columns in business weeklies such as the Edge in Singapore/Malaysia. He serves as Member of the Regional Advisory Board for Asia of the International Monetary Fund; Senior Adjunct Fellow, Institute of Policy Studies; Council Member of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs; and Vice-President of the Economics Society of Singapore.
Mr Manu has a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a Bachelor’s degree in economics from Cambridge University. He has also qualified as a Chartered Financial Analyst.
Michael Fung is Deputy Chief Executive (Industry), Chief Human Resource Officer, and Chief Data Officer at SkillsFuture Singapore. Dr Fung is responsible for the continuing education and training system in Singapore, oversees the human resource function, and champions data governance, management, and reporting practices. He serves as an adjunct Senior Fellow at the Singapore University of Technology and Design.
Dr Fung is Founding President of the Higher Education Planning in Asia Association, and a board governor of IP Academy Singapore. He is an alumnus of the University of Southern California and Carnegie Mellon University in the US, and Tsinghua University in China.
Lee Hwok-Aun (PhD) is Senior Fellow at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore. He has researched and published works on affirmative action, discrimination, inequality, social protection, labour and education, with a focus on Malaysia, as well as comparative study vis-à-vis South Africa and Southeast Asia. His recent articles have been published in Journal of Contemporary Asia, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Journal of Southeast Asian Economies, and in books published by ISEAS, Oxford University Press, Edward Elgar and Routledge. He has served on the Technical Committee of Malaysia’s National Wage Consultative Council, and as national consultant in the 2013 Malaysia Human Development Report.
Registration
For registration, please fill in this form and email to iseasevents3@iseas.edu.sg by 30 April 2019.