Today I would like to introduce Dr Hooi Hooi Lean, a remarkable Malaysian Economist, who is currently an Economics professor at the Universiti Sains Malaysia. She completed her undergraduate studies in Economics from the University of Malaya, and later achieved her PhD in the same field from the National University of Singapore, after which she attended Monash University in Australia as an Economics post-doctoral fellow. Her specialisations include risk analysis, applied statistics and econometrics, finance and the stock market, as well as energy economics, focusing on Asia-Pacific economies.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hooi-hooi-lean-b7283275
Website: https://hooilean.wordpress.com/

She is an editor and associate editor of several reputed academic journals, to name a few: Singapore Economic Review, Malaysian Journal of Economics, and Energy Research Letters. Her work uses econometrics to analyse and better understand incredibly topical issues such as natural resource management, housing supply, and energy consumption coupled with economic growth. Econometrics is the use of data and statistics to analyse economic relationships. Overall, she has published over 150 academic articles and book chapters.

Her accomplishments have had acknowledgement and wide recognition: she received the 2015 National Academic Award and 2017 Malaysia’s Research Star Award from the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia. Moreover, in 2018, she was a recipient of the Top Research Scientists Malaysia (TRSM) award given by the Academy of Sciences Malaysia. Her excellent work has also received international recognition through the International Who’s Who in the World publication since 2009.

Hooi Hooi contributed to the ‘Research Handbook of Investing in the Triple Bottom Line: Finance, Society, and the Environment’, a book which digs deep into ESG-oriented sustainable finance. The chapter which she co-authored covers the history and implications on macroeconomic stability of sovereign wealth funds being integrated into economies.

Her work has been important in the resource policy decision-making. Hooi Hooi co-authored the journal article ‘Are Too Many Natural Resources to Blame for the Shape of the Environmental Kuznets Curve in Resource-Based Economies?’ concluding that economic growth is a cause of environmental degradation in Malaysia and a greater push for the diversification of economic activities by the government can alleviate this. The paper discusses that an economic transition of Malaysia to a knowledge-based economy can help decrease overall pollution levels and increase sustainability.

Hooi Hooi is on the Penang Tourism Economy Recovery Advisory Board, which provides policy-level recommendations to mitigate socio-economic impacts of Covid-19 and promote economic growth. On this note, Hooi Hooi has taken an active role in understanding the future of Asia-Pacific economies and examining policies that can be implemented to ensure these economies can bounce back from the socio-economic effects of Covid-19. Her book ‘Revitalising ASEAN Economies in a Post-Covid-19 World’ is forthcoming and will be published in June 2021 – so look out for its release!

Thank you for reading. Watch this space for the next post in this series. Please keep the conversation going and share this post. Together, let’s cheer for women’s achievements!