Donald Low

Donald Low is Senior Lecturer and Professor of Practice at the Institute for Public Policy at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), where he also serves as Director of Leadership and Public Policy Executive Education. He is an accomplished consultant and lecturer whose work focuses on economics and behavioural economics, decision-making and risk analysis, inequality and social policy, complexity in public policy, organisational behaviour, and the politics and governance of Singapore.

Low has worked extensively across the public, private, higher education, and non-profit sectors. Prior to joining HKUST, he was Associate Dean for Executive Education and Research at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. He previously spent nearly 15 years in the Singapore government as a member of the Administrative Service. During this time, he founded the Centre for Public Economics at the Civil Service College to advance economics literacy within the Singapore public service, and held senior appointments at the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service Division.

Low is the editor of Behavioural Economics and Policy Design: Examples from Singapore (2011), a pioneering volume documenting how behavioural economics has been applied across several policy domains in Singapore. His best-selling book, Hard Choices: Challenging the Singapore Consensus (2014), raises critical questions about the long-term sustainability of Singapore’s governance model and argues for a far-reaching rethinking of the country’s policies and institutions in response to emerging socioeconomic, demographic, and political realities.

He holds a double first-class degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from the University of Oxford, and a Master’s degree in International Public Policy from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.