Lunchtime Seminar: Poverty in Asia: A Deeper Look

Topic:      Poverty in Asia: A Deeper Look Speaker: Dr. Guanghua Wan, Principal Economist, Asian Development Bank Date:        Monday 1st September 2014 Time:       12.15pm for a 12.30pm start Venue:     Ground Floor East Seminar Room, RBA, 65 Martin Place, Sydney Cost:        Free – light refreshments provided Presentations usually conclude between 1.15pm and 1.30pm. Abstract This presentation is based on the very recent flagship publication of the Asian Development Bank. Professor Wan argues the conventional wisdom, that Asia will become free of poverty in the 2020s, fails to consider significant challenges of rising food insecurity, rising inequality and rising vulnerability in Asia. When these dimensions are brought into measures of poverty, the story will have a completely different ending: poverty remains prevalent in fast growing Asia even beyond 2030. Brief Bio Dr. Guanghua Wan is Principal Economist and Head, Poverty-Inequality Research Group, the Asian Development Bank. Previously, he was Senior Economist in the United Nations and taught in a number of Universities in Australia and China. Trained in development economics and econometrics, Dr. Wan is an award-wining scholar on the Chinese economy and an expert on Asia, with an outstanding publication record of more than 100 professional articles and a dozen of books including two by Oxford University Press. An honorary professor of over ten top institutions in China including Fudan and Zhejiang Universities, Dr. Wan is among the top 8% economists globally and top 4% in Asia according to the latest ranking of REPEC. Some of his publications can be downloaded here: http://ideas.repec.org/f/pwa395.html.