After a tense and controversial election period, Joe Biden is now set to become the next president of the United States. We asked Assistant Professor Yongwook Ryu to give us his perspective on the past four years under the Trump administration, as well as on what the Biden administration has in store for China and the rest of Asia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Prior to the US elections, the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy held an instalment of their Asia Thinker Series titled “Asia’s Takeaways from the US Elections” featuring Visiting Senior Research Fellow Drew Thompson. Now the elections have come and gone and Joe Biden is set to become the 46th President. So we asked Drew to give us a more detailed look at what's in store for a Biden administration. Subscribe to our newsletter See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the nature of education in ways that few other events could. Adopting technology to work, live and learn from home while staying distant from others has affected millions. A recent instalment of the Asia Thinker Series (After the Pandemic) moderated by Associate Professor Suzaina Kadir, Vice Dean of Academic Affairs at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, discussed what is in store for education in the post-COVID-19 era. After the session,...

Razeen Sally is Associate Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and Chairman of the Institute of Policy Studies, the main economic-policy think tank in his native Sri Lanka. His research and teaching focuses on global trade policy and Asia in the world economy. He has also written on the history of economic ideas, especially the theory of commercial policy. Subscribe to our newsletter   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

James Crabtree has been the Mumbai bureau chief for the Financial Times, a senior policy advisor in the UK Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit and was a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Today, the journalist and author is an Associate Professor in Practice at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. His latest book, The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India's New Gilded Age takes an in-depth look at the “…billionaire class in a radically unequal society” where the...

Thirsty Cities: Social Contracts and Public Goods Provision in China and India is a book written with one overarching, broad question in mind: Why does authoritarian China produce more public goods than democratic India? The book’s author is Selina Ho, Assistant Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. She specialises in Chinese politics and foreign policy, with a focus on the politics of water and infrastructure. I asked her why she decided to write this book. Subscribe to the...

The third instalment of Asia Thinker Series: Talkback discussed state capacity, trust, and privacy in the post-COVID-19 era. The episode featured Singapore’s Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, John Micklethwait of Bloomberg and Ms Rana Foroohar from the Financial Times and was moderated by Associate Professor in Practice James Crabtree from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. To follow up with some of the topics raised during the episode, we caught up with Anubhav Gupta,...

The second episode of the Asia Thinker Series Talkback was titled: After the Pandemic "A Test of Resilience: Workplace Innovation and Strategies" It featured Jane Lim of Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority, Shirin Hamid of the Asian Development Bank and was moderated by Assistant Professor Taha Hameduddin from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and can be viewed on the school’s Facebook page. After the panel, there were still some unanswered questions from several...

In his recent book, Climate Change and Natural Disasters:, Vinod Thomas, Visiting Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy writes about “The knowledge - action gap,” when it comes to solving the climate crisis. And he should know. In his career, Professor Thomas has been at the forefront of evaluating and making policy recommendations for green growth and action on climate change at institutions like the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank Group. What does he mean by...

Hong Kong has been a flashpoint in the news off and on since March of 2019, when thousands of people took to the streets in protest of a proposed extradition bill. Since then the bill was officially withdrawn but the situation remains troubled. More recently, China passed a national security law that could completely change Hong Kong's relationship with the mainland, yet how the law will be implemented remains to be seen. The dynamic between Beijing and Hong Kong is what Alfred Wu, Associate...

2.1 children per woman. That is roughly considered replacement level fertility for a given population.  These days, most advanced economies have total fertility rates lower than that. And some of the lowest fertility rates can be observed in Asia. Like in Japan, South Korea  and Singapore where the rate was 1.14 in 2019.  Assistant Professor Tan Poh Lin from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy has called this a crisis " of national importance." And one that will be around for a long...

“Homelessness exists in Singapore.” That’s the first thing that Senior Research Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy Dr Ng Kok Hoe told me when we had a chance to discuss the topic. And it’s true. They are just less visible. It’s often difficult to distinguish a homeless person from any other member of the public, for a variety of reasons that we’ll get into. Dr Ng and his team issued a first of its kind report, “Homeless in Singapore: Results from a Nationwide Street Count,” in...

Recycled drinking water is not a new concept.  In Singapore, it has been around for two decades, but if you talk to people about it, there's still a certain "yuck factor" that surrounds the idea. Leong Ching, Associate Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, dedicates a lot of time studying why people behave the way they do when it comes to the environment. She jokes, sometimes calling it "useless research," but it actually sheds light on the subject and as it turns out, this...

In light of the COVID-19 virus that continues to plague China and other countries, we caught up with Tikki Pangestu, Visiting Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. Professor Pangestu spent 13 years at the World Health Organization in Geneva as Director of Research Policy and Cooperation Department. He shares his insider's view of the global health response. This podcast episode was recorded on 14 February 2020 and does not take into account more recent developments of the...

In this episode, we will be speaking to Ong Ye Kung, Singapore's Minister for Education. He's been a Member of Parliament since 2015. And he has held a wide range of government positions, including Deputy Secretary-General of the National Trades Union Congress - NTUC, Chief Executive of Singapore Workforce Development Agency - WDA, and Deputy Chief Negotiator for the US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement. Minister Ong recently spoke at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy's Festival of...

Thomas Friedman, noted author and foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times, believes the world is being reshaped today by three simultaneous accelerations: in technology, globalisation and climate change. He likes to call the accelerations hockey sticks, referring to the steep angle they represent on a graph. Friedman travelled to Singapore recently to take part in the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy's Festival of Ideas, 2019. He presented his ideas in a panel called "How to...

The idea of racial harmony is deeply ingrained in Singapore's national identity. The national pledge recited daily by school children states, "regardless of race, language or religion" - yet discussing racial integration remains a touchy subject. Dr. Matthew Matthews is Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Social Lab at the Institute of Policy Studies, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy where, among other things, he conducts research in race, religion, immigrant integration, family...

Danny Quah is a noted economist, teacher and writer. He has a long list of qualifications and accomplishments, and currently he's Dean and Li Ka Shing professor in economics at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. His work focuses on income inequality, economic growth, and international economic relations. Lately he's been studying the global power shift and the rise of the East and alternative models of global power relations. He's also quite a student of pop culture, and if you stick...