Dr Sean Turnell

Senior Fellow, Southeast Asia Program
Areas of expertise

Macroeconomic policy; economic reform; the role of financial institutions in economic development; Myanmar; Indo-Pacific

Dr Sean Turnell
Biography
Publications
News and media

Sean Turnell is a Senior Fellow in the Southeast Asia Program at the Lowy Institute, covering developments in Myanmar, the wider region, and international economic issues. He has been a Senior Economic Analyst at the Reserve Bank of Australia, a policy adviser to a range of international institutions including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and is a Professor of Economics at Macquarie University. Most prominently, from 2016 to 2021 he served as the senior economic adviser to Myanmar’s democratic government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Following a military coup in February 2021, Sean was imprisoned alongside Myanmar’s democratic leadership. After 650 days of incarceration and severe ill-treatment, he was finally released in November 2022.

Dr Turnell has written extensively on macroeconomic policymaking, economic reform and the role of financial institutions in economic development, with a special focus on Australia, Myanmar and the Indo-Pacific. He has written more than 100 scholarly articles on these topics and has been a contributor to publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Financial Times and The Australian, as well as the BBC, Voice of America, CNBC, Bloomberg and many others.

He has been a fellow at the Paul H Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University; at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge; the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University; and the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore. In 2009, Sean’s book on Myanmar’s monetary and financial history, Fiery Dragons, was published by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies. Sean lives in Sydney with his wife and fellow economist, Dr Ha Vu.

Hostage diplomacy: Fresh ideas to end a modern blight
Hostage diplomacy: Fresh ideas to end a modern blight
A new Australian senate inquiry into the practice of imprisonment for leverage offer a chance to learn from international experience.
How Myanmar’s Central Bank Facilitates the Junta’s Oppression
Journal Articles
How Myanmar’s Central Bank Facilitates the Junta’s Oppression
This Analysis was originally published by the United States Institute of Peace on 11 July 2024.
Man v machine: Future of war not all drones and AI, soldiers still matter
Commentary
Man v machine: Future of war not all drones and AI, soldiers still matter
Originally published on the United States Institute of Peace 
The Fix: All roads lead to the White House
The Fix: All roads lead to the White House
Our contributors offer reading, watching and listening recommendations that you might otherwise miss.
In a meaningless gesture, Myanmar junta cuts Aung San Suu Kyi’s sentence
Commentary
In a meaningless gesture, Myanmar junta cuts Aung San Suu Kyi’s sentence
Originally published in Channel News Asia
In a meaningless gesture, Myanmar’s junta cuts Aung San Suu Kyi’s sentence
In a meaningless gesture, Myanmar’s junta cuts Aung San Suu Kyi’s sentence
The leaders of the deposed democratic government shouldn’t be in jail at all.
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