20th International Convention
East Asian Economic Association

Jong-Wha Lee is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Economics at Korea University. He previously served as Chief Economist and Director General of the Economics and Research Department at the Asian Development Bank and worked as an economist at the International Monetary Fund. He also served as Senior Adviser for International Economic Affairs to the former President of South Korea. Lee has taught at the Australian National University, Columbia University, Harvard University, and Peking University. He holds both a Master’s degree and a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram is Research Adviser at the Khazanah Research Institute, Fellow at the Academy of Science, Malaysia, and Emeritus Professor at the University of Malaya. He was UN Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development, Assistant Director General at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Founder-Chair at the International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs), and President of the Malaysian Social Science Association. Jomo has authored and edited over a hundred books, written many academic papers, research reports and media articles, besides translating 12 volumes. He received the 2007 Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought and several honorary doctorates. The World Academy of Sciences has announced he will share the 2026 TWAS Award in Social Sciences.

Aaditya Mattoo is Chief Economist of the East Asia and Pacific Region of the World Bank. He specializes in development, trade and international cooperation, and provides policy advice to governments. Prior to this, he was Co-Director of the World Development Report 2020 on Global Value Chains, and Research Manager, Trade and International Integration. Before he joined the World Bank, he was Economic Counsellor at the World Trade Organization and taught economics at the University of Sussex and Churchill College, Cambridge University. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Cambridge, and an M.Phil in Economics from the University of Oxford. He has published on development, trade, trade in services, and international trade agreements in academic and other journals and his work has been cited in the Economist, Financial Times, New York Times, and Time Magazine.

Arsenio M. Balisacan is Secretary of the Department of Economy, Planning, and Development (DEPDev), formerly the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), which he led under two administrations. In this capacity, he also serves as Vice Chair of the Economy and Development Council, chaired by the President of the Philippines. Before his return to NEDA in 2022, he was the founding Chairperson of the Philippine Competition Commission (2016–2022). He has also held other senior leadership roles as Dean of the University of the Philippines School of Economics, Director-Chief Executive of the Southeast Asian Regional Centre for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), and Undersecretary of the Department of Agriculture. Dr. Balisacan’s career has spanned academia, government, and international institutions. He taught for more than 30 years at the University of the Philippines, was a research fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu, and served as an economist at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. He has advised multilateral organizations, including the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, OECD, ASEAN, and various United Nations agencies. Currently, he co-chairs the OECD Southeast Asia Regional Programme with Canada. A past president of the Philippine Economic Society and the Asian Society of Agricultural Economists, Dr. Balisacan has served on numerous advisory boards in the Asia-Pacific region. He is the author or co-editor of ten books and nearly 100 scholarly papers on Philippine and Asian economic development, and was founding editor of the Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development (2004–2016). A member of the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST), he holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Hawai‘i, an M.S. in Agricultural Economics from the University of the Philippines Los Baños, and a B.S. in Agriculture from Mariano Marcos State University.

Benjamin E. Diokno, PhD was appointed as a full-time member of the Monetary Board for a six-year term effective on 12 January 2024, after having served as Secretary of the Department of Finance from 2022 to 2024. Prior to his appointment as finance chief, Dr. Diokno served as governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) from 2019 to 2022. Under his leadership, the BSP was among the first central banks in the world to deploy decisive measures in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and pave the road to recovery. In 2022, he was named Global and Asia-Pacific Central Banker of the Year by The Banker, an international finance publication, in recognition of his leadership of the BSP through the global health crisis and his modernization agenda for the Philippines’ banking system.  Before taking charge of monetary affairs, Dr. Diokno served as Budget Secretary under three presidents where he pursued an expansionary fiscal policy to finance investments in human capital development and public infrastructure. Dr. Diokno finished his Bachelor’s Degree in Public Administration (1968) and Master’s Degree in Public Administration (1970) and Economics (1974) at the University of the Philippines. He holds an M.A. in Political Economy (1976) from the Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. in Economics (1981) from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. In 2017, he received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of the Philippines—the highest academic rank and honor conferred by the University.

Albert F. Park is Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Director General of its Economic Research and Development Impact Department. He is chief spokesperson on economic and development trends and leads the production of ADB’s flagship knowledge products and support for regional cooperation fora. Mr. Park has more than 2 decades of experience as a development economist and is a well-known expert on the economy of the People’s Republic of China. He has worked on a broad range of development issues including poverty and inequality, intergenerational mobility, microfinance, migration and labor markets, the future of work, and foreign investment. Mr. Park is Chair Professor of Economics, Social Science, and Public Policy at HKUST (on leave). He served as a founding director of HKUST’s Institute for Emerging Market Studies and Center for Economic Policy, and previously held faculty positions at the University of Oxford and University of Michigan. A national of the United States, he received his bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard University and his doctorate in applied economics from Stanford University.

Hal Hill is the H.W. Arndt Professor Emeritus of the Southeast Asian Economies at the Crawford School, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University. His main research interest is Southeast Asian economic development. He is the author/editor of 20 books and about 170 journal articles and book chapters. Over the past 20 years and beyond he has been active in managing/co-managing several major research projects with a large and diverse group of authors and colleagues that have resulted in edited book volumes on various aspects of Asian economic development. Details of the volumes published since 2000 are listed below. His major current research project is an updated and fully revised third edition of his book on the Indonesian economy, to be published by Cambridge University Press. He has held visiting academic appointments at the University of the Philippines, Gadjah Mada University, the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Oxford University, Colombia University, the International University of Japan, the Tinbergen Institute, the National University of Malaysia, the Rockefeller Bellagio Center, and Freiburg University. He serves on various boards and committees, including the Honorary Board (Dewan Kehormatan) of the Bank Indonesia Institute, the Council of the East Asian Economic Association (of which he is President in 2020-21), and boards at the ANU, Macquarie University, and Monash University. He has advised and consulted to the Australian Government, the Indonesian Government, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and various United Nations agencies. He is also a member of the editorial boards of 12 academic journals, and a frequent media contributor. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences of Australia, and has been an official guest of the Republic of Indonesia under its Presidential Friends of Indonesia program. In 2020 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). He has been gratified to receive two volumes: The Philippine Review of Economics, Volume LII No 2, December 2015, eds, Maria Socorro Gochoco-Bautista, Arsenio Balisacan and Emmanuel S. De Dios. Trade, Development, and Political Economy in East Asia, eds, Prema-Chandra Athukorala, Arianto A. Patunru and Budy P. Resosudarmo, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 2014.

Dr. Denis Suarsana has been the Director of the Indonesia office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) in Jakarta since 2022. From March to August 2025 he acted as the Interim Director of the KAS Australia and the Pacific office in Canberra. Previously, Mr. Suarsana was Deputy Director Strategy and Digitalization at the German Employers’ Association (BDA) in Berlin. From 2016 to 2018, he worked as a Policy Advisor at the German Federal Foreign Office. He holds a doctorate in economics and studied political science and European studies in Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom. His most recent publications include International Perceptions of Germany’s and Europe’s Competitiveness (2025), De-Risking, but where to? The Emerging ASEAN countries as an alternative to China (2024) as well as The Economic Race in Southeast Asia – and why Europe is falling behind (2024).