Research
My work spans issues in applied economics, encompassing topics related to jobs, labor markets, social protection, and economic development. Please see here for a longer list of recent research output and publications.
Jobs, labour markets, and the world of work
We spend a most of our lives working (whether in market employment or in home production). I am interested in how work affects our lives, and how various factors – ranging from technological change, education, demographic characteristics (youth, women, disadvantaged groups) – shape the quality of work and its broader social and economic impacts. I am also interested in how work affects economic development and social progress on a macro level.
I am currently working on a project on AI and the future of work in Malaysia (with Hanson Chong and others), exploring the impacts of generative artificial intelligence (specifically LLMs and related techology) will affect Malaysia’s workers and labour markets in the coming years. Some background and preliminary research was presented at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia’s flagship PRAXIS 2024 conference.
Over the past few months, I have published policy briefs on Malaysia’s progressive wage policy, estimated the value of unpaid care and domestic work (UCDW) performed by Malaysia’s women in a paper on Building a cradle-to-grave economy for Malaysia (with Lee Min Hui and others). I have also published a policy brief on Malaysia’s decline in PISA scores (with Sofea Azahar) and have written a working paper on the causal effect of retirement on wellbeing.
Social protection, benefit and transfer programmes
I am interested in how social protection and transfer programmes can help restore greater choice and autonomy for people to choose the social and economic lives they want to live. I am also interested in the policy design considerations of social transfer policies, including incentive mechanisms, targeting, and financing.
I have worked on the policy design considerations of Malaysia’s unconditional cash transfer programme (currently Sumbangan Tunai Rahmah, previously variously named BR1M, BSH, BPN) since 2018. This includes design aspects related to beneficiary targeting, coverage, benefit adequacy, and implementation of both the flagship transfer programme, as well as the “crisis” measures introduced in economic stimulus measures in 2020-2021.
During my time in the London School of Economics, I wrote a working paper on the causal effect of retirement on wellbeing in Malaysia, using Wave 1 data from the Malaysian Ageing and Retirement Survey (MARS) using a regression discontinuity approach. I also wrote a report in collaboration with the World Bank Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice on how to design index-linking mechanism for social transfer programmes to maintain purchasing power in times of economic uncertainty. This work was presented at a World Bank SSN-GSG Brown Bag Lunch.
Economic and social impacts of crises
Over the Covid-19 pandemic, I analysed the varied and wide-ranging impacts Covid-19 had on Malaysia’s economy, workers, and society – including the vastly unequal labour market impacts of containment measures on disadvantaged demographics, and its long-lasting consequences for Malaysia’s inequality and development. Part of this work has also involved documenting regional economic responses to the pandemic and evaluating the design and effectiveness of Malaysia’s economic stimulus measures.
Other miscellaneous and random topics
On a broader level, I am interested in how market actors negotiate in market structures, and how market imperfections can undermine the functioning of markets. Further, I am interested in the idea that intervention in markets serve to make markets more efficient, primarily by reducing relational assymetries between market actors and reducing incentives for market actors to accumulate undue bargaining power at the expense of others. On this front, I have written a short working paper on Gentrification and landlords: how market failures fuel displacement that explore these ideas at a very early and rudimentary level.