Unprecedented Economic Growth: Daily Lives and Human Stories

Unprecedented Economic Growth: Daily Lives and Human Stories in China and Indonesia

The lecture will discuss how economic development has shaped millions of lives across China and Indonesia. It will draw on the analysis of large amounts of household and community level data spanning the period from the 1990s through to the 2020s to paint a picture of what economic growth has meant for the populations of China and Indonesia. Topics covered will include how GDP per capita has grown and for whom; how jobs and livelihoods have changed; improvements in living and housing standards; impacts on education, health and mortality; migration, family life and gender roles; and the evolution of the welfare state.

About the presenter

Professor Lisa Cameron

Professor Lisa Cameron is the James Riady Chair of Asian Economics and Business and Program Director of the Disadvantage and Wellbeing in the Asia-Pacific group at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research at the University of Melbourne. She is a development economist whose research focuses on social welfare in Southeast Asia and China. She is particularly interested in the welfare of disadvantaged and marginalised groups which she researches using survey data, administrative data, lab experiments and randomised controlled trials. She received her PhD in economics in 1996 from Princeton University, is an Affiliated Professor of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences, a Fellow of the International Economic Association (IEA) and the inaugural director of the Australasian Development Economics Association (ADEA). Her research has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals, including Science and the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and featured in media outlets, including the New York Times, The Economist and Time Magazine.