Lisa Cameron

Lisa Cameron is the James Riady Chair of Asian Economics and Business and Professorial Research Fellow at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, University of Melbourne. She leads the Program on Disadvantage and Wellbeing in the Asia-Pacific and maintains affiliation with J-PAL Southeast Asia. Her decades-long research focuses on policy evaluation using experimental economics methods, particularly in Indonesia and China.

Research interests center on socio-economic determinants of welfare, with active projects examining:

• Gender norm interventions and female labor participation
• Child development programs in Timor-Leste
• Migrant worker information systems
• Sanitation and health behavior
• Cash transfer effectiveness

Recent publications demonstrate strong focus on gender economics, sanitation policy, and labor transitions, with work appearing in Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Development Economics, and Health Economics. Key findings include unintended consequences of sex work criminalization, threshold effects in sanitation programs, and impacts of China's demographic policies.

Honors include:

• Fellow of Australian Academy of Social Sciences (2014)
• Fellow of International Economic Association (2022)
• Distinguished Fellow of Economic Society of Australia (2023)
• 2021 AHES Best Paper Prize

She maintains extensive policy collaborations with World Bank and Australia's DFAT, designing evaluations that inform social programs. Her lab leverages field experiments and administrative data to study disadvantaged populations across the Asia-Pacific region.