Is US dollar-dominance in the International Monetary System a red herring? How Is Changing A USD-dominant IMS Harder Than Changing World Order? substack.com/profile/1378... www.dannyquah.com/Storage/2026...

We're Princeton alumni. So of course we spent the whole evening discussing distribution requirements and how they become constraints that do not bind, and that the Honor Code no longer is. Also, service to nation and the world.

Asia is more than China and India, and its future might be shaped not by its giants but by its smaller states. When Great Powers practise economic statecraft, they bend the world to their geopolitical will. What goes instead into the smaller state's playbook? nus.syd1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

World order is metastatizing. The wealth of nations is shifting. I was in conversation in Delhi with Vijay Vaitheeswaran on disorder, the futility of power, and how the new global order might look. Who rolled up to ask questions: Gen Z's making macroeconomics great again.

Very early draft, but it's got a title page and a technical appendix (and carefully-crafted LaTeX drawings), and it's been presented to serious scholars, so... Quah, D. 2026. "The Rest of Us: Incentives, not Power, in Rebuilding World Order", LKYSPP (Apr). www.dannyquah.com/Storage/1776...

Wed 29 Apr in Delhi I'm discussing shifts in the global economy with Vijay Vaitheeswaran, The Economist's Global energy and climate innovation editor. events.economistenterprise.com/resilient-fu...

Four decades of the Seoul Forum for International Affairs, and somehow this year a paper on multilateralism namechecks The Last of Us. I'm speaking alongside Victor Cha and Christina Davis, but it's Chatham House Rule. So all I can say is the fungal metaphor for multilateral collapse is underused.

Today if you are not American and cheering on the US administration's foreign policy actions, you are cheering on the actions of an administration that is ever less recognised by the American people. substack.com/@dannyquah/n...

Even as a young assistant professor, Obstfeld seemed to get to make a paper presentation at every macroeconomics conference .. which is good, as every time we read him, our thinking course-corrected. WEAI International Conference, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok www.weai.org/events/18th-...

Boao Forum this year centered on the theme of a shared future and new models of cooperation. I am a big fan of new models of cooperation. Also, whatever happened to the traditional Chinese gift offerings of smartphones, tablets, and powerbanks? substack.com/@dannyquah/n...

PM Lawrence Wong at Boao Forum for Asia: flexible plurilateralism with pathfinder initiatives, with groupings open and inclusive, will complement not replace traditional multilateralism. Importance of greater regional cooperation and integration. Continued growth of groupings such as CPTPP and DEPA.

Andrew Rozanov and I recalled the Santiago Principles - guidelines which the US insisted on so that potential adversaries with large pools of capital invested based only on economic risk-return calculation, not political motivation. Yeah, we had a good laugh at that one. Then we discussed war.

I'm not mad about self-proclaimed middle powers, but not very much should hinge on who exactly takes leadership. Any sensible incentive-compatible coalition is good. "A Constructive Path to Sustainable Trade Reform", Brookings-Rockefeller 17 Rooms Flagship (Mar) www.brookings.edu/articles/a-c...

Sims was someone from a time when giants walked the earth. Macroeconomics has now lost yet another of those giants. substack.com/profile/1378...

When in one afternoon you can have an Ipoh lunch, relive examination fear (even if it's been decades), and go behind the scenes of this most formative separation.

They've done the sums. The threat from an established nuclear power that has broken international law invading a smaller sovereign state is not as bad as one the US keeps saying will go nuclear any day now and that keeps badmouthing a smaller sovereign state www.nytimes.com/2026/03/12/u...

We sit back and marvel at the geopolitical disruptions major powers wreak. We hardly ever ask who is most incentivised to carry out economic statecraft against them. substack.com/@dannyquah/n...

Thu 05 Mar 2026 Bangkok, IMF Asia in 2050 Conference I will be speaking on this panel alongside these distinguished thinkers on the Future of Growth in Asia Depending, I might go all in on rules-based order. www.imf.org/en/news/semi...

AI inversion. I asked my local LLM to introspect and join up what I'd been thinking the last four years open.substack.com/pub/dannyqua...

We're dealing with a powerful nation whose ultimate objectives remain unclear and unarticulated. Instead of resolving that, many have chosen instead to respond to the strongest signal that they do see, that of a mercurial political leader. substack.com/@dannyquah/n...

It's called economic statecraft

These days when I have dinner with age-appropriate friends, I get to say curmudgeonly things. Also, we get to talk authentically about the lived background to what's being shown at National Exhibitions and museums and stuff.

This is great. But I keep thinking of America's approach today to the rest of the world and of those writers who describe economic statecraft as "a means of working the US's geopolitical will in the world." igp.sipa.columbia.edu/news/columbi...

Ministers to movie stars, everyone wants to talk new world order these days.

The point is not to complain about geopolitics being the dustbin of bad economics. Or how great powers can hurt us, and so we should play exposed-puppydog-belly strategy, and do what they say. Instead it is to ask, What does economic statecraft tell us is the smartest thing to do?

When I lived in London I once let slip I'd won silver at the British Championship taekwondo sparring. I remember being deeply offended that all my academic colleagues at School could say was, What age group? Now, running West Coast parkrun, I am very pleased for age categories.

When major powers adopt “Might Makes Right, We’re a Superpower” tactics, small states must craft strategic responses. The point is not to approve or disapprove, or to cheerlead or complain. Instead, it is to ask what is the smartest thing to do. www.straitstimes.com/opinion/bewa...

I find this gives me both solace and dread. On the other hand, however, when someone says they reckon Trump has some Grand Strategy that they then try to explain to me... there there is only despair. This morning from Michael Wolff's Substack // open.substack.com/pub/michaelw....

Mark Carney has put on the table the proposition that capitulation is not the best response, even to someone playing the "We're a Superpower" strategy. Instead, better is to mitigate. substack.com/@dannyquah/n...

While the Transatlantic West has taken its position against America's "We're a superpower" approach to foreign relations, some observers in Asia and elsewhere consider that European stance naive. It's striking how badly Might Makes Right goes when it goes bad. substack.com/profile/1378...

I have friends who cheer on the US's recent international actions. They cite a combination of Might Makes Right and how MAGA and America First as fine principles. The problem, however, is squaring those with what the US administration is doing to its own people. substack.com/@dannyquah/n...

Beyond the deep polarization within the US, a fracture is also emerging internationally. (...) "Which side were you on when all that was unfolding?" substack.com/@dannyquah/n...

Maybe "is" has been misspelt as "that Are".

Many of my American friends agree 'that's not policy', while many of my Asian friends: "America is now in a stronger position than it's ever been; power is how the world works; the White House is exercising ingenious far-sighted geopolitical grand strategy." Someone is lying.

At her US Supreme Court confirmation hearings, when Elena Kagan was asked where she was Christmas Day 2009, she said, "You know, like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant." When you have Penang food in Bangsar

If the benefits of the Great Power-led old world order were exaggerated, will a new order be better if organised by Middle Powers, again with small states in tow? substack.com/@dannyquah/n...

If multilateralism is dying, what new forms of international engagement might emerge? What forces can help surface future multilateralisms and shape their contours? substack.com/profile/1378...

A gentle suggestion on how in social science we describe current US policies substack.com/@dannyquah/n...

"US tariffs are painful. But they affect you only as long as you continue to trade with the US." Quah, D. 2025. "China + One vs world minus one", in Recalibrating Asia's Frontiers, 38th Asia-Pacific Roundtable, ISIS Malaysia Focus www.isis.org.my/wp-content/u... DannyQuah.github.io/Storage/2025...

Mon 01 Dec 2025 I will be on a panel in London to discuss forces driving and Indo-Pacific consequences of global fragmentation. Via AU, IN, SG High Commissions in the UK, with the Centre for Statecraft and National Security, KCL Register to take part csns.uk/event/indo-p...

Time was, life in England used to be a lot simpler.

Tue 02 Dec 1200h I'm speaking at LSE's International Development department. But all interested welcomed.

Apart from "Hwarang tul. Junbi. Sijak", this is how I sound in Korean. n.news.naver.com/article/009/... www.koreaherald.com/article/1061...

Next weekend I'm trying out some ideas in England

When I returned to SE Asia in 2016, a good friend at a top US Economics Department told me I had obviously decided to take the easy way out and retired, so I would no longer have to compete in the fierce competition of frontier economic ideas.

Along with President Xi and PM Lawrence Wong, I'm Team "Mitigate, don't align." Don't even not align. www.straitstimes.com/singapore/po... www.nytimes.com/2025/10/31/w... www.straitstimes.com/opinion/conc...

The Global Distribution of Authorship in Economics Journals Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Australia are not developing countries but I reckon the conclusions are invariant if we changed "developing" to "outside the North Transatlantic Axis". www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

We have learnt that America's elasticity is either zero or negative. Nations that have worked hard have not only gotten nothing in return; in several high-profile cases, their circumstances have instead worsened. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2Yd... open.substack.com/pub/dannyqua...

Geoeconomics isn't "the economics of the global economy" or "economic security". Instead, geoeconomics is, as economic statecraft, the use of economic tools for foreign policy goals. So, doing geoeconomics means knowing your enemy, or identifying the shocks hitting your economy.

If economic fetishism prioritized economic efficiency over national security, and economic statecraft reversed that causality, then instead of debating which side is right, we should instead be looking at state extractionism ... www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/w...