Jikon Lai’s academic research and intellectual interests laid at the intersection of international and comparative political economies, and international relations. He was animated by the desire to understand the interplay of domestic and international factors on financial systems. His work examined how state, business and societal actors create, reproduce and sustain finance and the financial sector; and spoke to issues like industrial policy, social reproduction of institutional structures and incentives that drive individual behaviour.
These intellectual interests were realised in several empirical domains: financial sector development and governance in East Asia, the evolution of a sovereign wealth fund in an emerging economy, regional financial architecture and Islamic finance. He had, for the most part, adopted institutional approaches in his work, but had also employed agent-centred and ideational perspectives where they were methodologically relevant.
Jikon’s research output has been published in Review of International Political Economy, New Political Economy, Journal of the Asia-Pacific Economy, Asia Europe Journal and the Australian Journal of Public Administration. He is also author of a book – Financial Crisis and Institutional Change in East Asia – published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2012. He also contributed to wider popular debate through various commentary pieces.
Jikon Lai was Assistant Professor in the International Political Economy Programme of the S.Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University and Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Melbourne. He received his doctoral degree from the Department of International Relations in the College of Asia & the Pacific at The Australian National University. He had previously studied at the University of Oxford where he obtained an M.Phil. in International Relations; and the London School of Economics and Political Science, finishing with a B.Sc. in Economics (First Class).
Jikon has extensive experience teaching at the postgraduate-level. He has taught at the University of Melbourne, the Australian National University, Macquarie University in Sydney and the S.Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He has convened and taught the following subjects:
- International Political Economy
- The Politics of Finance
- Trade Policy, Politics and Governance
- International Relations of East Asia
- International Relations Theory
- Development and Change
Jikon has been invited to peer review for:
- Asia Europe Journal
- Economy and Space
- Pacific Affairs
- Policy and Society
- Review of International Political Economy
- Routledge
- SOJOURN, Journal on Social Issues in Southeast Asia
Jikon Lai 