Roland Rajah

Lowy Institute Lead Economist; Director, Indo-Pacific Development Centre
Areas of expertise

International economic policy; Asia Pacific economies; macroeconomics; economic development; aid and development finance; globalisation; geo-economics.  

Roland Rajah
Biography
Publications
News and media

Roland Rajah is Director of the Indo-Pacific Development Centre, a dedicated policy research centre within the Lowy Institute. The Centre is committed to producing fresh policy insights and ideas on the most pressing economic development challenges facing the Indo-Pacific region — principally focusing on the emerging and developing economies of Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands and South Asia. He also serves as the Lowy Institute’s Lead Economist, a position he has held since joining the Institute in 2017.

Roland directs the overall work program of the Indo-Pacific Development Centre across its key thematic pillars of post-Covid growth and development, globalisation and regional integration, climate change and development, technology and digital economy, aid and development finance, and geoeconomics. The Centre also houses the Lowy Institute Pacific Aid Map project, which provides the world’s most comprehensive data tracking of all official aid and other development finance flows to the Pacific Islands.

A development economist by background, Roland has extensive experience working across both emerging Asia and the small island developing states of the Pacific. He has previously worked for the Asian Development Bank, Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), and the Reserve Bank of Australia. Roland holds a master’s degree in economics from the Australian National University, where he was awarded the Helen Hughes Prize in International and Development Economics. He also serves on the board of the Cambodia Development Resource Institute, one of Southeast Asia’s leading independent policy research think tanks.

India’s economy after Covid
India’s economy after Covid
Digitalisation is helping the top and the bottom, but jobs are a big concern.
Worries about China's economic power are overdone
Commentary
Worries about China's economic power are overdone
Core realities suggest that it will never establish a meaningful lead over the West. Originally published in Nikkei Asia.
Revising down the rise of China
Analyses
Revising down the rise of China
Despite being on track to become the world’s largest economy, China will struggle to avoid a future of significantly slower long-term growth.
Sanctions bite – but how dangerously?
Sanctions bite – but how dangerously?
As long as Russian energy revenues continue to flow, Moscow will retain a critical financial lifeline.
Towards a Better Vaccine Diplomacy
Commentary
Towards a Better Vaccine Diplomacy
If vaccine diplomacy is the new great game, it is being played wrong by all sides, with the risk that no one will be left a winner. Originally published in The Diplomat.
COP26 and beyond: fault lines in global climate policy
Podcasts
COP26 and beyond: fault lines in global climate policy
In this episode, Lowy Institute lead economist Roland Rajah is joined by Dr Vijaya Ramachandran and Dr Sam Geall to discuss the outcomes from the COP26 Glasgow Climate Change…
Assessing Australia’s role in global vaccine equity
Assessing Australia’s role in global vaccine equity
Australia has been more generous than most but as geopolitical as China.
The scope to negotiate with China on the CPTPP
The scope to negotiate with China on the CPTPP
It would be useful to have more cooperative economic ballast in relations, even as other things might deteriorate.
There is no wages case for a permanent cut to immigration
Commentary
There is no wages case for a permanent cut to immigration
RBA governor Philip Lowe makes a reasonable point about the short-term suppression of wages in some industries. But long-run evidence shows migration lifts demand for workers…
Top