About the Authors

Tan Khee Giap is a Co-Director of the Asia Competitiveness Institute (ACI) and Associate Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. He is also the Chairman of the Singapore National Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation. Upon graduating with a PhD from University of East Anglia, England, in 1987 under the Overseas Research Scheme awarded by the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals of the Universities of the United Kingdom, he joined the banking sector as a treasury manager and served as secretary to the Assets and Liabilities Committee for three years, there after he taught at the Department of Economics and Statistics, National University of Singapore, 1990—1993. Dr Tan joined Nanyang Technological University in 1993 and was Associate Dean, Graduate Studies Office, 2007—2009.

Dr Tan has consulted extensively with the various government ministries, statutory boards and government linked companies of Singapore government including Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Trade & Industry, Ministry of Manpower, Housing & Development Board, Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore, Singapore Tourism Board, Trade Development Board, Maritime Port Authority, Ministry of Information, Culture & Arts, Economic Development Board, Ministry of National Development, Media Development Authority, Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, Singapore Design Council, Ministry of Community Development, Youth &Sports, Singapore Press Holdings, Yayasan Mendaki, StarHub, CapitaLand and Great Eastern Life. He has also served as a consultant to international agencies such as the Asian Development Bank, Asian Development Bank Institute, United Nations Industrial Development Group, World Bank Group, World Gold Council, ASEAN Secretariat, Central Policy Unit of Hong Kong, Kerzner International, Las Vegas Sands and Marina Bay Sands.

Dr Tan is the lead author for more than 20 books, serving as journal editors and published widely in international refereed journals. He is the associate editor of the journal Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies (US) and is on the editorial advisory board of the journal Competitiveness Review(UK).His current research interests include Cost of Living and Purchasing Power Index for World's 105 Cities, Global Liveable Cities Index, Ease of Doing Business Index and competitiveness analysis on sub-national economies of China, India, Indonesia and Association of South East Asian Nations.

Dr Tan was Deputy President of the Singapore Economic Society, 2004. He served in the 2002 Economic Review Committee (ERC), served as Chairman of the Task Force on Portable Medical Benefits (PMB), served as the Deputy Chairman of the IPS Forum for Economic Restructuring (IFER) in 2003 and served as a member of the Resource Panel of the Government Parliamentary Committee for Transport and Government Parliamentary Committee for Finance and Trade & Industry and Government Parliamentary Committee for Defense and Foreign Affairs since 2007. Dr Tan is currently an Independent Director of the publicly listed BreadTalk Group, Boustead Singapore, Lian Beng Group Ltd, TEE Land Limited, Chengdu Rural Commercial Bank and Senior Business Advisor to United Overseas Bank Limited, Singapore.

Shen Kaiyan, PhD in Economics, Research Professor. Director of the Institute of Economics, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and Vice President of the Shanghai Economics Association. Graduated from the Economics Department of Nanjing University and the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. Her main research areas are political economy, macroeconomic theory and practice, China's economic reform and development, and the Indian economy. She has presided over more than 10 national social science fund projects, Shanghai social science fund projects, and Shanghai decision-making consulting projects, and published nearly 100 academic papers on economics. Her masterpieces include“Shanghai Economic Development Blue Book”, “India Economic Reform for 20 Years — Theory, Evidence and Comparison”, “BRIC E-Commerce Development Report”, “Structural Adjustment and Transformation of Economic Development Mode”, “Leap-forward Development of Tibet Economy: Theory and Policies”, etc.

Wang Hongxia is a Professor at the Institute of Economics of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. She is also the chief professor of Metropolis Spatial Development Strategy & Policy Research Innovation Think Tank. She got her PhD in Economics from Fudan University in 2004. Her research fields include population urbanization, industry economy, urban and regional development. As a leader, she has finished many research programs on population urbanization, immigrants and social segregation in Mega-cities, regional development and integration, and aging China etc. Some of which are sponsored by national government fund. Now she is hosting the national key research project on Immigrants' social segregation during the process of Population Diversification in Big Cities. She is also a very important consultant of Shanghai municipal government, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong, Hebei, Yunan, Guizhou, Qinhai, Xinjiang and Tibet, mostly consulted project focusing on the national social and economic development strategy, silk road development strategy and Yangtz Delta Area development, regional industry Plan, and so on.

Zhang Xuyao is a Research Fellow at the Asia Competitiveness Institute (ACI) at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore (NUS). Dr Zhang received his PhD in Economics from NUS in 2016 and obtained his Bachelor (Honors) degree in Applied Mathematics from NUS as well in 2012. During the PhD candidature, he worked as teaching assistant in conducting undergraduate tutorials, such as Microeconomics, Macroeconomics and Managerial Economics. His research focuses on Industrial Organizations, Applied Game Theory, and Public Economics. In particular, he is interested in technology transfers and anti-trust policies. He studies the optimal environmental taxation on the pollution problems in the presence of corruption. He also works on the beneficiary of research joint ventures with technology transfer. He also studies the Qualcomm's anti-trust case in China.

At ACI, Dr Zhang is supervising all the Competitiveness Projects (ASEAN, China, India and Indonesia). He is the coordinator for the Quality Adjusted Labour Productivity Project, Welfare Spending and Budget Sustainability project and Shandong Urban Composite Development Index project. He is also the co-coordinator for the project studying the impact of exchange rate on trade at provincial level of China. Dr Zhang is also working on the methodology of applying the concept of Shapley values to index ranking analysis. This method will subsequently serve as a robustness check to all the competitiveness ranking studies in ACI. Additional projects he is working on include the construction of the Special Economic Development Area index, the construction of Infrastructure index and the Independent Review and Efficiency Monitoring (IREM) of Real Time Outcome Monitoring System (ROMS) for the Government of Andhra Pradesh (GoAP), India.

Mao Ke is a Research Assistant at Asia Competitiveness Institute (ACI), Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. He graduated from National University of Singapore with Bachelor of Business Administration with Honours (Distinction) and specialised in Finance and Operations & Supply Chain Management. At ACI, he works as the coordinator of the project on Annual Competitiveness Analysis for 34 Chinese Economies. He is deeply involved in the project:Independent Review and Efficiency Monitoring (IREM) of Real Time Outcome Monitoring System (ROMS) for the Government of Andhra Pradesh (GoAP), India, providing data insights for government authorities. He is also actively involved in several other projects such as Welfare Spending and Fiscal Sustainability Analysis and Cost of living and Wages for Expatriates and Average Residents for 105 Cities. His research interests cover the fields of financial economics, macroeconomic policy and development economics.