Prior to joining the Crawford School, Stephen was Chief Economist at the Australian Agency for International Development. He worked from 1994 to 2005 at the World Bank, first in Washington and then in Delhi, where he was Lead Economist for India. In 2008, he worked on the Garnaut Review on Climate Change, where he managed the Review's international work stream. He continues to work as an advisor and consultant for AusAID and the World Bank on issues relating to aid effectiveness and climate change policy.

Stephen serves as a Board Member for the Pacific Institute of Public Policy, and sits on the Advisory Board of the Asian Development Bank Institute. He is the Director of the International and Development Economics teaching program at the Crawford School, and is also Director of the Development Policy Centre.

Research interests/expertise

• Aid policy
• Public finance in developing countries
• International climate change policy
• India
• Pacific and PNG

Recent publications

• (2011) “An Overview of Aid Effectiveness Determinants and Strategies”, Development Policy Centre Discussion Paper 1.
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• With A. Talberg (2010) “Party divides: expertise in and attitude towards climate change among Australian Members of Parliament”, CCEP working paper 8.10.
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• (2010) with P. Dutta and R. Murgai (2010) "Small but Effective: India's targeted unconditional cash transfers", Economic and Political Weekly, 45(52) December 25 - December 31, 2010, pp. 63-70.
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• (2010) with Erik Kwa and Soe Lin Review of the Australia-PNG Development Cooperation Treaty, Report to the Governments of Australia and Papua New Guinea,
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• (2009) ‘Common ground must be found and fast’ Contribution to Climate Commitments to 2050: a roadmap for China, East West Dialogue, December,
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• Review of  W. Easterly’s The White Man’s Burden: why the West’s efforts to aid the rest of the world has done much ill and so little good (Penguin, 2006), Economic Record, Vol. 85, Issue 271, December.
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• Review of  S. Yusuf’s  Development Economics through the Decades: a critical look at  30 years of the World Development Report,  Asia Pacific Economic Letters, 23(2), 2009.
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• Don't wait for Copenhagen: implications of the climate change impasse for Australia and APEC, Asialink essay, October 2009.
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• ‘Can China Rescue the Global Climate Change Negotiations?,’ Chapter 18 of China’s New Place in a World in Crisis, Garnaut, R., Song, L. and Thye Woo, W. (eds) ANU E Press, 2009-11-26
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• With Nik Soni ‘Comment: Vanautu’s good recent growth performance’ in Pacific Economic Bulletin, Vol. 24(1), 2009
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• ‘Cheap but not easy: the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in Papua New Guinea’ in Pacific Economic Bulletin, Vol. 24(1), 2009
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• ‘Finding a Way Forward: three critical issues for a post-Kyoto agreement on climate change’, forthcoming in Indian Growth and Development Review.
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• with R. Garnaut, F. Jotzo and P. Sheehan (2008) ‘Emissions in the Platinum Age: the implications of rapid development for climate change mitigation’, Oxford Review of Economic Policy 24(2): 1–25.
• with D Mishra and VJ Ravishankar (2008) “Ten Years of World Bank Sub-national Policy-based Lending to India: a retrospective” in The Indian Economy Sixty Years after Independence, Jha, R, (ed), Palgrave-Macmillan.

• with R. Murgai (2006) “Subsidies and Salaries: issues in the restructuring of government expenditure in India,” Ch. 8 in A Sustainable Fiscal Policy for India: an international perspective, Heller, P. and Rao, Govinda M. (eds.), OUP.

• See also The Garnaut Climate Change Review, the 2008 Pacific Survey and the 2005 Core Group Recommendations Report for a White Paper on Australia’s Aid Program.
• with N. Stern and A. Lahiri (eds., 2003) State-level Reforms in India: Towards Effective Government, Macmilla

Courses

• CRWF8006 Climate Change Policy and Economics
• IDEC8007 Aid and Development Policy
• CWRF8000 Governments, Markets and Global Change

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