Department of Economics

Professor Anne Booth

Key information

Roles
Department of Economics Emeritus Professor of Economics
Qualifications
BA (VUW), PhD (ANU)
Email address
ab10@soas.ac.uk
Telephone number
020 77042831

Biography

Anne Booth is an Emeritus Professor at SOAS.

She was a graduate student at the Australian National University from 1971 to 1974, focusing on rural taxation in Indonesia for her dissertation. Afterward, she embarked on a teaching journey at the University of Singapore (now NUS), dedicating three years to imparting knowledge before eventually returning to the ANU as a research fellow. For numerous years, she devoted herself to studying the economic development of Southeast Asia, with a specific emphasis on Indonesia.

In 1991, she achieved a remarkable milestone when she was appointed to a prestigious chair at SOAS. Holding this position until her retirement in 2014, she continued to delve into her interests in the economic history of the Asian region. Throughout her career, she authored multiple books on the economic history of Southeast Asia, as well as a comparative analysis exploring the enduring effects of colonial policies across East and Southeast Asia. Her contributions were widely recognized, and she received numerous awards from the Leverhulme Foundation.

In the academic year 2015/16, she received an exceptional opportunity to serve as a Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Distinguished Fellow at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University, and the National University of Singapore. This appointment further enhanced her research endeavors and allowed her to collaborate with esteemed colleagues in the field.

Her book on Living Standards in Southeast Asia: Changes over the long twentieth century, 1900-2015, was published by Amsterdam University Press in 2019. She is now working on a study of globalisation in Southeast Asia over the long term.

Research interests

Economic Development, Southeast Asia, Colonial Legacies, Globalisation.

Contact Anne