Iwan Azis is a Professor of Emerging Markets within the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management and was the Director of Graduate Studies, Regional Science program(2005-2010), Cornell University where he has taught since 1992. Prior to that, he was the Chair of the Department of Economics and the Director of the Inter-University Center for Economics at the University of Indonesia. Iwan has served as a consultant to several governments and organizations in Asia and taught as a visiting professor in Japan, Australia, Singapore, and Indonesia. He previously served as the appointed Head of the Office of Regional Economic Integration at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), during which he became the Interim Chair of the Board of Directors of the Trust Fund-Credit Guarantee Investment Facility (CGIF), and a member of the International Policy Advisory Group. He is currently advising the Indonesian Central Bank and the Deposit Insurance Corporation, and a member of the International Advisory Panel of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Iwan is a “Distinguished Scholar in Regional Science, Financial Economics, and Economic Modeling.” His research focuses on the interlink between macro-financial economics, social institutions, and spatial inequalities in emerging markets. He has published several books, the latest ones are “Regional Economics: Fundamental Concepts, Policies, and Institutions,” World Scientific (2021), and “Periphery and Small One’s Matter: Interplay of Policy and Social Capital” (Springer, 2022). Among his latest articles are “Financial Spillover in Emerging Asia” Asian Economic Papers(MIT Press, 2021), and “Indonesia: A Tale of Three Crises” in Trauma to Triumph: Rising from the Ashes of the Asian Financial Crisis(World Scientific, 2022). He is currently leading a major research program that entails interviewing hundreds of micro-small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) throughout Indonesia, emphasizing the role of social capital and mechanism design approach to improve the effectiveness of policies.