Danny Quah
@dannyquah.bsky.social
Economist who studies Third Nation Agency in Geopolitics
Danny Quah is Li Ka Shing Professor in Economics at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. His work includes contributions to the fields of economic growth, development economics, monetary economics, macroeconometrics, and the weightless economy. Quah is best known for his research on estimation techniques for disentangling the effects of different disturbances on economies, for his studies on economic growth and convergence across nation states, and for his analyses of large-scale shifts in the global economy. Quah became the dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, beginning his term on 1 May 2018. .. more
Economics
84%
Political science
6%
DannyQuah.github.io
Actually, my job here is to help develop sound economic statecraft to protect my part of the world from the MAGA "America First" geoeconomics of a globally irresponsible United States.
(And when I do that here, I'm not being just a development economist.)
DannyQuah.github.io/Storage/2025...
(And when I do that here, I'm not being just a development economist.)
DannyQuah.github.io/Storage/2025...
When I returned to SE Asia in 2016, a good friend at a top US Economics Department told me I had obviously decided to take the easy way out and retired, so I would no longer have to compete in the fierce competition of frontier economic ideas.
Along with President Xi and PM Lawrence Wong, I'm Team "Mitigate, don't align." Don't even not align.
www.straitstimes.com/singapore/po...
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/31/w...
www.straitstimes.com/opinion/conc...
www.straitstimes.com/singapore/po...
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/31/w...
www.straitstimes.com/opinion/conc...
The Global Distribution of Authorship in Economics Journals
Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Australia are not developing countries but I reckon the conclusions are invariant if we changed "developing" to "outside the North Transatlantic Axis".
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Australia are not developing countries but I reckon the conclusions are invariant if we changed "developing" to "outside the North Transatlantic Axis".
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Consider This: The US, China, and a Changing Asia
YouTube video by Astro AWANI
www.youtube.com
We have learnt that America's elasticity is either zero or negative. Nations that have worked hard have not only gotten nothing in return; in several high-profile cases, their circumstances have instead worsened.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2Yd...
open.substack.com/pub/dannyqua...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2Yd...
open.substack.com/pub/dannyqua...
Geoeconomics isn't "the economics of the global economy" or "economic security". Instead, geoeconomics is, as economic statecraft, the use of economic tools for foreign policy goals. So, doing geoeconomics means knowing your enemy, or identifying the shocks hitting your economy.
... that uses both foreign policy and national economic tools to advance personal self-interest:
NYT 2025 "Why Vietnam Ignored Its Own Laws to Fast-Track a Trump Family Golf Complex" (25 May)
NYT 2025 "Why Vietnam Ignored Its Own Laws to Fast-Track a Trump Family Golf Complex" (25 May)
Why Vietnam Ignored Its Own Laws to Fast-Track a Trump Family Golf Complex
www.nytimes.com
If economic fetishism prioritized economic efficiency over national security, and economic statecraft reversed that causality, then instead of debating which side is right, we should instead be looking at state extractionism ...
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/w...
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/w...
Danny Quah
@dannyquah.bsky.social
· Oct 6
Of course, others went to Princeton too. But not all who start together end up in the same place.
Danny Quah
@dannyquah.bsky.social
· Oct 6
Milley in farewell speech: ‘We don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator’
The remarks come one week after former President Donald Trump suggested the retiring general should be killed.
www.politico.com
Princeton classmate, thinker, and professional. So, after Milley left service, many of us recalled: "A nation that makes a sharp separation between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools".
www.politico.com/news/2023/09...
www.politico.com/news/2023/09...
Danny Quah
@dannyquah.bsky.social
· Oct 4
That couple months when I got to meet up with my former students from LSE and LKYSPP, now all across the world, changing it.
Danny Quah
@dannyquah.bsky.social
· Sep 27
Why capacity-building is great, of course, improving the supply side. But economics also flags the limits to that strategy. Not least in a world of fraying multilateralism and hesitant globalisation, especially if your economy is a billion-people one.
Danny Quah
@dannyquah.bsky.social
· Sep 21
Facebook reminds me that as recently as nine years ago the world, its universities, and their headlines were very different from today.
Danny Quah
@dannyquah.bsky.social
· Sep 12
"Tell me you're social media naive without telling me you're social media naive." What's your favorite "tell me without telling me" meme (or collection) that I can show someone who still doesn't get it?
Danny Quah
@dannyquah.bsky.social
· Sep 9
Economics seminars ain't what they used to be.
www.politico.com/news/magazin...
www.politico.com/news/magazin...
Danny Quah
@dannyquah.bsky.social
· Sep 4
"If the international system is to endure, it must have more than just great- or middle-power leadership. Incentive compatibility must replace the idea that size matters and will add more to resilience than explicit contractual collaboration agreements."
www.imf.org/en/Publicati...
www.imf.org/en/Publicati...
Danny Quah
@dannyquah.bsky.social
· Sep 2
World Order Minus One
In a world of unpredictable great powers, adaptation leaves small states exposed. Mitigation, through proactive economic statecraft and pathfinder multilateralism, offers an attractive alternative.
www.straitstimes.com/opinion/conc...
In a world of unpredictable great powers, adaptation leaves small states exposed. Mitigation, through proactive economic statecraft and pathfinder multilateralism, offers an attractive alternative.
www.straitstimes.com/opinion/conc...
Danny Quah
@dannyquah.bsky.social
· Aug 29
If major powers are tearing up the global rulebook, what principles might help frame the way forwards?
The London Consensus - Oct 2025
Published 16th October, via OpenAccess publishing, will be free to read and download.
press.lse.ac.uk/books/e/10.3...
The London Consensus - Oct 2025
Published 16th October, via OpenAccess publishing, will be free to read and download.
press.lse.ac.uk/books/e/10.3...
Danny Quah
@dannyquah.bsky.social
· Aug 21
What The Big Bang Theory and TV drama continue to miss is how in graduate school it is students of public policy that are awesome.
Lee Kuan Yew School of Policy
Lee Kuan Yew School of Policy
Danny Quah
@dannyquah.bsky.social
· Aug 16
Unbelievably, it's now 43 years to the month since I first met this man who became my PhD supervisor and taught me so many of the tools and ideas I still use today. And today still he inspires with his humility, his curiosity, and his conviction on the ideals of scholarship.
Danny Quah
@dannyquah.bsky.social
· Aug 8
Boao Forum
全球南方的多边主义悲剧 | 博鳌发言
where I suggest that multilateralism decays, not passively because of benign neglect, but actively because of the dynamics of costs and benefits.
(English links at the bottom)
mp.weixin.qq.com/s/lLc3me7B9f...
全球南方的多边主义悲剧 | 博鳌发言
where I suggest that multilateralism decays, not passively because of benign neglect, but actively because of the dynamics of costs and benefits.
(English links at the bottom)
mp.weixin.qq.com/s/lLc3me7B9f...
Danny Quah
@dannyquah.bsky.social
· Aug 4
Friends are helping me port to my own Weixin official account things I've written they feel should be read in China in Chinese. We agreed to begin with this one
致特朗普：美国不要再沉迷于“世界第一”了 | 狮城来信
mp.weixin.qq.com/s/nBZFGU4x50...
致特朗普：美国不要再沉迷于“世界第一”了 | 狮城来信
mp.weixin.qq.com/s/nBZFGU4x50...
Danny Quah
@dannyquah.bsky.social
· Aug 3
Meltdown of order is both trope and reality of our time.
Does the global economy shift from our lifting others so we raise ourselves, or from keeping others down?
Obviously we each said what we thought.
Does the global economy shift from our lifting others so we raise ourselves, or from keeping others down?
Obviously we each said what we thought.
Danny Quah
@dannyquah.bsky.social
· Jul 25
Correlated Trade and Geopolitics Driving a Fractured World Order
This article argues that in a fracturing world order geopolitics and trade align. It is, thus, a fallacy that geopolitics and economics provide a balance through working in opposition.
dannyquah.github.io/publications...
This article argues that in a fracturing world order geopolitics and trade align. It is, thus, a fallacy that geopolitics and economics provide a balance through working in opposition.
dannyquah.github.io/publications...
Danny Quah
@dannyquah.bsky.social
· Jul 22
Is the conventional capacity-building of economic development the right response? What can we do better?
lkyspp.sg/world-bank-a... including Selina Ho and Saravanan Ravindran from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy
lkyspp.sg/world-bank-a... including Selina Ho and Saravanan Ravindran from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy
Danny Quah
@dannyquah.bsky.social
· Jul 12
The China Shock can be viewed as import flow or as price effect. The latter, pricing the China Shock, helps explain why industrial policy attempting to protect specific sectors ends up, in reality, penalizing those same sectors.
open.substack.com/pub/dannyqua...
open.substack.com/pub/dannyqua...
Danny Quah
@dannyquah.bsky.social
· Jul 12
Thirty years after when we were new full professors at LSE, of traversing the planet physically, Hyunsong Shin and I again got to sit down together and discuss convergent research, this time on geopolitics and world order, multilateralism, and global monetary and financial stability.
Danny Quah
@dannyquah.bsky.social
· Jul 3
Farewell Tribute to Professor Kanti Bajpai
YouTube video by Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKY School)
youtu.be
Kanti Bajpai has retired from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. We made him Emeritus Professor. And a farewell video:
youtu.be/duZgJF8JMe8
youtu.be/duZgJF8JMe8
Danny Quah
@dannyquah.bsky.social
· Jul 1
Consider This: The US, China, and a Changing Asia
YouTube video by Astro AWANI
www.youtube.com
Elina Noor and I team up with Melisa Idris, and talk new world order and what, when we're outside Great Power frontlines, we should be doing. The new world order is too important to be left to those primed only for conflict and gridlock www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2Yd...
Danny Quah
@dannyquah.bsky.social
· Jun 29
Why did I write that America needs to stop obsessing about being number 1?
And other things we talk about in Asia.
mp.weixin.qq.com/s/LlVtU0dy4H... (Chinese text)
www.sztv.com.cn/ysz/dsdb/szw... (English video)
And other things we talk about in Asia.
mp.weixin.qq.com/s/LlVtU0dy4H... (Chinese text)
www.sztv.com.cn/ysz/dsdb/szw... (English video)