Malaysian born US economist recruited as Penang advisor

Read this in the Star a few days ago. Dr Woo Wing Thye, currently at the Brookings Institution, a Washington DC based think tank, as well as a tenured economics professor at the University of California at Davis, has been recruited as a member of a new think tank set up by the DAP led Penang state government.

His CV is certainly impressive. He graduated from Swarthmore, a liberal arts college in Philadelphia, got an MA from Yale and then an MA and a PhD from Harvard. He's published numerous articles in peer review journals including a few articles with Jeffrey Sachs, someone which I've brought up a few times in this blog. He's also advised the US treasury, the IMF and the World Bank. Interesting, he was appointed as a member of the International Advisory Panel to the Prime Minister of Malaysia in 2005. Hopefully, he will play a complementary role to many of the other academics and specialists who are and will contribute their services to the new state government in Penang.

A friend of mine suggested that the new Penang state government hold a Penang 'diaspora' seminar / gathering for all those Penangites who have left the country but are now willing to contribute to building Penang up once again now that it is under opposition hands. My sense is that many of these individuals would have had concerns working for or with a BN led government because of the perception of corruption and human rights abuses often linked with the BN government. I certainly hope that many formerly disillusioned Penangites will step up to the plate and bring about positive changes to the 'Pearl of the Orient' state.