The Li Ka Shing endowed professorship has been a key enabler for my research on inequality and social mobility, and on great power competition and the new economic world order. The professorship has allowed me the space to rethink inequality as the critical social challenge, a narrative on which so much conventional wisdom has settled, or whether instead that narrative hides yet deeper problems and has been inappropriately identified in public conversation, and social and traditional media. At the same time, the world is undergoing a profound shift in the international system, shifting from the liberal, rules-based form it has taken for nearly a century: The professorship has given me unique opportunity to rethink the principles on which the international community has built our world order. As recipient of this professorship, I am privileged indeed to lead the work at the Lee Kuan Yew School drawing parallels between global issues and the local context in Singapore and ASEAN, that we might better navigate the challenges that lie ahead.

Although I grew up in Southeast Asia, I have spent much of my career as a political scientist in the U.S. and the U.K. I have always been interested in U.S. foreign policy (what I taught at Harvard and Oxford), the international relations of Asia, and cognitive approaches to social science. As the LKS Professor in Political Science at the LKY School, I am able to do more in-depth research in these areas, particularly the role of the U.S. in Asia, the rise of China and the responses of the Southeast Asian countries, while observing and trying to understand the tremendous economic and power shifts that are taking place right before our eyes. In the midst of the current global coronavirus pandemic, we have seen how the souring relations between the U.S and China have been aggravated further. This pandemic could not have come at a worse time for US-China relations: the mixture of geopolitical competition, trade frictions, and the ensuing blame game stemming from the global pandemic will undoubtedly pose serious challenges to the security and prosperity of Asia and beyond.

One of the reasons I study public policy is that we can make a difference by offering innovative ideas to policy makers and governments at different levels in their efforts to address specified problems. Nowhere is this more important that when it comes to the environment.

I am honoured to be selected for this prestigious LKS Professorship, which is allowing me to me to engage in systematic conceptual and empirical research aimed at generating insights for developing, and managing, problem-oriented “anticipatory policy design” exercises. I am especially interested in uncovering “easy to pull, but hard to reverse” policy levers that are capable of addressing the climate and biodiversity crises. I am also excited about my current work that has expanded to assess the COVID-19 pandemic.

This research has already uncovered four different moral philosophies that help explain differences in country level approaches to COVID-19 management. More recently we have expanded our analysis to assess how our work on climate policy might help identify techniques for managing COVID-19 as a “super wicked” problem.

I have a deep interest in India and its foreign relations and security. My aim is to understand what drives Indian policies, to assess the effectiveness of its policies, and to trace the consequences for other countries. My larger interest is the security of Asia and India’s role in the region’s wellbeing. I am particularly interested in India-China relations. As the two biggest countries in Asia, they will have a profound impact on peace and stability. A third focus for me is how Asians think about war and peace, regional and global order, and strategy – in other words, Asia’s international and strategic thought. Given my long-standing interests in Asia, I am honoured to be the Wilmar Professor of Asian Studies. This endowed professorship has helped reflect on my research priorities and bring clarity to future research endeavours. It is my hope that my contributions will underscore the importance of Singapore and NUS’ scholarship in Asian studies.

I am deeply honoured to be conferred the Yong Pung How Professorship. The Yong Pung How Professorship will help raise the profile of the school as well as my own work in the broad fields of international macroeconomics and development.

Of particular research interest is the question of how several open economies in Asia including Singapore are able to navigate the macroeconomic and financial policy complexities arising from a world characterised by significant economic and geopolitical disruptions such as the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-09 and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

My research to date has largely focused on understanding the interactions between international capital flows, exchange rate regimes, financial sector development, and macroeconomic and financial stability. While my research has largely had a pan-Asian focus including Singapore, as Yong Pung How Professor, I expect to dedicate even more time researching and teaching issues pertaining to Singapore, in particular, the constant evolution of the country’s policy toolkit in maintaining macroeconomic and financial stability over time. Some illustrations of areas of growing interest among LKYSPP students include Singapore’s eclectic and pragmatic approach to financial globalisation, as well as its innovative use of instruments such as Macroprudential policies to handle concerns about financial stability.

This endowed professorship is highly meaningful because it provides me a timely opportunity to expand my research frontier further to focus specifically on the macroeconomic and financial policy challenges confronting Singapore, especially in light of the rapidly transforming financial and trade landscape in the region, including those arising from the fallout of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. I am particularly pleased that this professorship will also support my engagement in policy outreach and deliberations on some critical research questions in the international finance and development space.