{{Short description|Professor in economics}} {{Infobox economist | name = Danny Quah | native_name = 柯成兴 | native_name_lang = zh | school_tradition = | image = 2013.04.23-Danny Quah-KL-UOLIP-0216.JPG | image_size = 275px | caption = Danny Quah, University of London KL Lecture, 23 April 2013 | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1958|7|26|mf=y}} | birth_place = [[Penang]], [[Federation of Malaya|Malaya]] | death_date = | death_place = | institution = [[Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy]] | field = [[Macroeconomics]]<br>[[Development economics|Development]]<br>[[International Relations]] | alma_mater = [[Princeton University]]<br>[[Harvard University]] | doctoral_advisor = | doctoral_students= | contributions = | awards = | memorials = | spouse = | signature = <!--(filename only)--> | repec_prefix = e | repec_id = pqu9 | module = {{Infobox Chinese|child=yes|hide=yes | t = 柯成興 |s=柯成兴 |poj=Koa Sêng-heng |j=O1 Sing4 Hing3 | p = Kē Chéngxìng}} }}
'''Danny Quah''' ({{zh|s=柯成兴|poj=Koa Sêng-heng|j=O1 Sing4 Hing3|p=Kēchéngxìng}}) is 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.<ref>[[Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy]]: Danny Quah http://lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/faculty/quah-danny/</ref> 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. After spending several decades as an academic at the [[London School of Economics]], Quah became the dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, beginning his term on 1 May 2018.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/lky-school-nus-danny-quah-kishore-mahbubani-10173220|title=Danny Quah to succeed Kishore Mahbubani as dean of Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy|first=|last=|date=25 April 2018|publisher=Channel News Asia|access-date=27 April 2018|archive-date=27 April 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180427184333/https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/lky-school-nus-danny-quah-kishore-mahbubani-10173220|url-status=dead}}</ref>
==Early years== Quah was born in [[Penang]],<ref name="interview">{{Cite news |title=Doing good for society |url=https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2009/01/24/doing-good-for-society}}</ref> in the [[Federation of Malaya]] which later became [[Malaysia]], and attended the [[Penang Free School]] and [[Francis Light School]] before leaving for university studies in the [[United States]].<ref name="interview" /> Quah obtained his [[Bachelor of Arts|A.B.]] from [[Princeton University]] in 1980 and his [[Ph.D.]] from [[Harvard University]].<ref name="interview" />
==Career== Quah worked as assistant professor of economics at [[MIT]] before joining the Economics Department at [[The London School of Economics and Political Science|LSE]] in 1991. Quah was, for 2006–2009, Head of the Economics Department at the [[London School of Economics|London School of Economics and Political Science]]. He was, through 2016, Professor of Economics and International Development, and founding Director of the [[Saw Swee Hock]] Southeast Asia Centre at [[London School of Economics and Political Science|LSE]]. Quah joined the [[Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy]] at [[National University of Singapore|NUS]] as [[Li Ka Shing]] Professor in Economics in August 2016.<ref>{{cite web |title=Danny Quah |url=https://cepr.org/about/people/danny-quah |website=CEPR |access-date=7 February 2025 |language=en |date=23 March 2003}}</ref>
Quah had served previously as Council Member on [[Malaysia]]'s National Economic Advisory Council and as Consultant for the [[Bank of England]], the [[World Bank]], and the [[Monetary Authority of Singapore]]. Currently, he is on the advisory board of OMFIF where he is regularly involved in meetings regarding the financial and monetary system. Quah had also worked as a visiting assistant professor of economics at [[Harvard University]], a visiting Professor of Economics at [[Tsinghua University]] School of Economics and Management and at the [[Nanyang Technological University]] of [[Singapore]], and the [[Tan Chin Tuan]] Visiting Professor at [[National University of Singapore|NUS]]'s Department of Economics.
==Research contributions== [[File:2010.09.27-LSE-Research-Danny.Quah-Map.png|thumb|left|The World's Economic Centre of Gravity 1980–2050. Produced by Quah, 2011.]]
[[Google Scholar]] Citations reports that Quah's most-cited works include his 1989 paper<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Blanchard | first1 = Olivier Jean | last2 = Quah | first2 = Danny | year = 1989 | title = The Dynamic Effects of Aggregate Demand and Supply Disturbances | journal = [[American Economic Review]] | volume = 79 | issue = 4 | pages = 655–673 | jstor = 1827924}}</ref> on [[Vector autoregression|Vector Autoregressions]] with [[Olivier Blanchard]] and his papers on poverty traps in cross-country economic growth<ref>{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1023/A:1009781613339| year = 1997| last1 = Quah | first1 = Danny |title=Empirics for Growth and Distribution: Stratification, Polarization, and Convergence Clubs| journal = Journal of Economic Growth| volume = 2| pages = 27–59| s2cid = 55517603}}</ref> and the convergence of Twin Peaked income distributions.<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Quah | first1 = Danny | year = 1993 | title = Galton's Fallacy and Tests of the Convergence Hypothesis | journal = Scandinavian Journal of Economics | volume = 95 | issue = 4 | pages = 427–443 | publisher = Blackwell | doi = 10.2307/3440905| jstor = 3440905 | hdl = 1721.1/63653 | hdl-access = free }}</ref> His published academic writings range widely from his prize-winning<ref>Quah, Danny. 2012. “How we miss the Great Shift East.” Global Policy, (May 17). http://globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/17/05/2012/how-we-miss-great-shift-east {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304035937/http://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/17/05/2012/how-we-miss-great-shift-east |date=2016-03-04 }}</ref> 2011 paper on the shifting global economy—mapping the eastwards movement in the world's economic center of gravity away from its 1980s mid-Atlantic location<ref>{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1111/j.1758-5899.2010.00066.x| title = The Global Economy's Shifting Centre of Gravity| journal = Global Policy| volume = 2| pages = 3–9| year = 2011| last1 = Quah | first1 = Danny | s2cid = 55154148| doi-access = free}}</ref>—to work while still a [[Graduate school|graduate student]] on the appendix to the famous [[Monetarism|Monetarist]] paper "Some Unpleasant Monetarist Arithmetic" (by [[Thomas Sargent]] and [[Neil Wallace]]).<ref>Thomas J. Sargent and Neil Wallace, [http://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/QR/QR531.pdf “Some unpleasant monetarist arithmetic,”] ''Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Quarterly Review'', Summer 1981</ref> Quah calls The Great Shift East the move in the world's economic center of gravity out of the mid-Atlantic location where it had been for most of the 19th and 20th centuries, pulled by the rise of economies in the east. Between 1980 and 2010 that economic center of gravity moved 5,000 km east, to the [[Persian Gulf]], on a trajectory that continues to take it towards the boundary between [[India]] and [[China]].<ref>{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1111/j.1758-5899.2010.00066.x| title = The Global Economy's Shifting Centre of Gravity| journal = Global Policy| volume = 2| pages = 3–9| year = 2011| last1 = Quah | first1 = D. | s2cid = 55154148| doi-access = free}}</ref>
Although the early part of his career saw close attention to technical developments in timeseries econometrics, Quah became heavily influenced by the approach to communicating ideas exemplified in the work of [[Edward Tufte]],<ref>Tufte, Edward. 2001. ''The Visual Display of Quantitative Information''. Second Edition. New Haven: Graphics Press</ref> and sought similar dissemination of his research to a wider audience.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Quah |first1=Danny |title=The Global Economy’s Shifting Centre of Gravity: Global Economy’s Centre of Gravity |journal=Global Policy |date=January 2011 |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=3–9 |doi=10.1111/j.1758-5899.2010.00066.x |url=https://scholar.google.com.sg/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=qS-fnM8AAAAJ&citation_for_view=qS-fnM8AAAAJ:b0M2c_1WBrUC |access-date=7 February 2025 |language=en|doi-access=free }}</ref> He has also argued that research on economic development needs to be inextricably linked to scholarly work in International Relations.<ref>The Liberalisation Delusion. [[Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy|LKYSPP]] September 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXfl-WksAWo</ref>
==Public dissemination== Quah's [[TED (conference)|TED]] talks include "Global Tensions From a Rising East"<ref>Global Tensions From a Rising East. TEDxLSE March 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nnQq4lP_6o</ref> (March 2012) and "Economics, Democracy, and the New World Order"<ref>Economics, Democracy, and the New World Order. TEDxKL August 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTRTF85ozZM</ref> (August 2014). Quah's public lectures and events, more generally, are available on a curated YouTube listing.<ref>Quah's curated public lectures and events youtube list: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL50A13DC96724F7E9</ref>
==Valeriepieris circle== {{Annotated image | image = Valeriepieris_circle_azimuthal_equidistant.png | image-width = 320 | image-left = -60 | image-top = -60 | width = 200 | height = 200 | caption = Quah's version of the [[Valeriepieris circle]] (yellow) centred on Mong Khet in an [[azimuthal equidistant projection]] }} The Mong Khet Circle<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geophysics/small-circle-asia-more-half-worlds-population.htm|title=A Small Circle in Asia Contains More Than Half the World's Population|date=27 June 2017}}</ref> is a {{convert|6600|km|adj=on}} diameter circle that contains more humans within it than outside of it, and placed over east Asia with its epicenter at [[Mong Khet Township]], [[Myanmar]]. An [[Valeriepieris circle|original circle]] of {{convert|8000|km|abbr=on}} diameter was originally devised by Ken Myers in 2013, before being later refined to {{convert|6600|km|abbr=on}} by Quah, with Mong Khet being identified as the centre.
==Papers== * [https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/view/lse_creators/b929a0983be33f70aa06e06941de067d.html Quah's publications] at LSE Research Online
==Personal life== Quah has two sons, Carter and Mason.<ref name="interview" />
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * [http://www.DannyQuah.com/ Quah's website] * [https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=lB3dvCwAAAAJ Quah's Google Scholar citations] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160405024347/http://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=lB3dvCwAAAAJ |date=2016-04-05 }}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Quah, Danny}} [[Category:1958 births]] [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:Academics from Penang]] [[Category:Malaysian people of Chinese descent]] [[Category:Harvard University alumni]] [[Category:Princeton University alumni]] [[Category:Harvard University faculty]] [[Category:MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences faculty]] [[Category:Academics of the London School of Economics]] [[Category:Academic staff of the National University of Singapore]]