Joseph Studwell

British journalist and author who has written the most accessible and rigorous accounts of East Asian economic development — particularly How Asia Works (2013) and Asian Godfathers (2007).

Development economics for general audiences: Studwell's synthesis of what actually drove East Asian economic success (land reform, infant industry protection, directed finance) is more accessible and more empirically grounded than academic development economics. His willingness to name specific countries, specific policies, and specific outcomes — and to disagree with Washington Consensus orthodoxy — makes his work distinctively useful for practitioners.