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About Nick: i am an economist based in malaysia. I write about ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND POLITICAL ECONOMY, while sneaking in a pop culture reference or two.

Nicholas Khaw

Oct 2
Oct 2 Economic Competitiveness and Firm Productivity

Nicholas Khaw
Economic Growth, Malaysia, Policy, Economics

When it comes to competition, if Malaysia’s largest firms primarily compete among themselves for an “island-type” market size, how productive can they actually be?

Sep 4
Sep 4 Economic Growth and a Societal Merdeka of Our Spirit

Nicholas Khaw
Economic Growth, History, Malaysia, Reflections

Questioning the wisdom and the authority of the past is how progress progresses. We will not achieve a true merdeka of self-determination for our country if we, at the societal level, do not ourselves possess a merdeka of our spirits.

Aug 7
Aug 7 Industrial Revolution Lessons for Malaysia's National Recovery Plan

Nicholas Khaw
Economic Growth, History, Malaysia, Covid-19

Our National Recovery Plan must chart a path towards a more sustainable and inclusive prosperity. We must be ambitious, bold and imaginative. But most of all, we have to be patient.

Jul 3
Jul 3 The Societal Optimal Level of Failure

Nicholas Khaw
Economic Growth, Innovation, Reflections

Economic development will have occasional failures as by-products of its progress. The optimal “experimental failure” level in a country is non-zero.

Jun 5
Jun 5 Trust, National Development and Jurassic World

Nicholas Khaw
Economic Growth, History, Malaysia, Trust

Trust grants a sense of security in society that those being governed will be taken care of by those who govern. It builds a foundation for society to build on…

May 8
May 8 The European Super League and a Systemic Failure in Innovation

Nicholas Khaw
Football, Malaysia, Innovation, Economic Growth

Without attempting something bold, our every social, political or economic possibility will always be “20 years away” or some faraway vision for us to achieve.

Apr 5
Apr 5 The Ripples of Covid-19 Vaccination

Nicholas Khaw
Covid-19, Justice, Politics

It is only with the passage of time that we will be able to see some of the unintended consequences of the global efforts on vaccines and vaccination. In this essay, I want to discuss four ripples.

Mar 8
Mar 8 A Future of More Frequent Chaos

Nicholas Khaw
Economic Growth, Malaysia, Policy, U.S.A., Wealth Inequality

Ultimately, while we must certainly care about infrastructure and the economy, it is real lives and real people that form the centre of our preparations towards more frequent tail events.

Feb 8
Feb 8 A True Test of Our Collective Machinery

Nicholas Khaw
Covid-19, Economic Growth, Policy

The implementation of vaccine distribution will make or break our vaccination strategy and will have important consequences for our more macroeconomic outcomes such as GDP growth and employment rates.

Jan 15
Jan 15 Our Malaysian Journey Forward

Nicholas Khaw
Malaysia, Wealth Inequality, Justice

But what I think we need to spend more time on is this redistribution of power and privilege across society. And to do this, we need to accept that those with power and privilege need to give substantive amounts up.

Dec 12
Dec 12 Democracy a Verb and Not Just a Noun

Nicholas Khaw
Democracy, Justice, Reflections, Politics

Democracy should be a verb, not a mere noun, and a big part of democracy and, therefore, answering the question of “How do we live together?” requires more humility in our thoughts and actions

Nov 11
Nov 11 More Information on Tackling Local Covid-19 Cases Needs to be Made Public

Nicholas Khaw
Malaysia, Policy, Statistics, Covid-19

Trust is key to an all-of-society approach to tackling Covid-19, but trust must be earned, not just assumed.

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Hi, I'm Nick. My research interests and intellectual passions are in the the political economy of economic development particularly related to the long term persistence of historical events and cultural/institutional co-evolutionary factors on economic and public policy outcomes today.

I serve as an economist in Khazanah Nasional, Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, where I am Head of Research and Co-Head of Private Markets, Investments. My work covers Investments research, private markets investing (direct and indirect), Dana Impak, Khazanah’s knowledge management and Khazanah’s public policy engagement. I am also a Trustee of the Khazanah Research Institute.

I also write a monthly column for The Edge Malaysia.

 

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