Professor Raj Brown (BA, MA Malaya; PhD London)
Emeritus Professor of International Business

Research Interests

• Asia Pacific business
• Chinese business in Asia
• Chinese business networks
• Chinese banking and insurance
• Small and medium size Chinese firms in South East Asia.

Before coming to Royal Holloway, she taught at the University of Malaya, the School of Oriental and African Studies, and the London School of Economics. Her principal publications include The Indian Minority and Political Change in Malaya, 1945-1957 (Kuala Lumpur, 1981), Capital and Entrepreneurship in South-East Asia (London, 1994), and Chinese Big Business and the Wealth of Asian Nations (London, 2000). She has edited Chinese Business Enterprise in Asia (London, 1995) and the 4-volume Chinese Business Enterprise: Critical Perspectives on Business and Management (London, 1996).

Current Research

Her current research focuses on the relationship between stock market behaviour and corporate performance in South-East Asia since the 1970s; and the financial structures of the Muslim diaspora in contemporary South-East Asia, with a particular emphasis on the importance of charities as institutions of capital accumulation. Arising from this research, she is completing two monographs, ‘Irrational Exuberance and Stock Market Capitalism in South-East Asia’ and ‘Financial Institutions, Charities, and the Emergence of Capitalist Groups in South-East Asia’. » More about Raj's current research

Her publication plans also include an edited volume on the financial institutions of the Muslim diaspora in South-East Asia 1830-2000, and a monograph on the capitalist underpinnings of terror and violence in South-East Asia.

Conference Organisation

Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, July-September 2004, carrying out research on Muslim financial institutions. I also organized a workshop on the financial growth and institutions of the Muslim diaspora in South-East Asia, 1830 to the present, held in December 2004.

Research Grants

Purpose of Study: Islamic endowments (waqf) and Chinese lineage trust (tong)
Amount: £5,600
Funding Source: The British Academy, 2009-10

Purpose of Study: Islamic Charities of the Muslim Diaspora in South East Asia, 1830-2000
Amount: £5,960
Funding Source: Nuffield Foundation, 2005

Purpose of Study: Muslim Diasporas as Mediators of Business Knowledge and Islamic Economics in the Regional Economies of South East Asia
Amount: £121,443 for two years
Funding Source: AHRC, 2005

Purpose of Study: Muslim Financial Institutions in South East Asia: Asian Research Institute
Amount: £9,000
Funding Source: National University of Singapore, 2002

Purpose of Study: Muslim Diasporas and Financial Institutions in South-East Asia
Amount: £5,960
Funding Source: Nuffield Foundation, 2002

Purpose of Study: Asian Financial Markets: Cycles and Crises. British Academy
Amount: £3,700
Funding Source: South-East Asia Committee, 1996

Purpose of Study: The Nature and Impact of South East Asian Chinese Investments in China, 1950-1995
Funding Sources: British Academy, South-East Asia Committee, £3,000: Nuffield Foundation, £5,000, 1996

Purpose of Study: The Restructuring of the South-East Asian Economies, 1945-1995
Amount: £156,498
Time Period: 1994-96
Funding Source: ESSRC

Purpose of Study: Chinese Banking in South East Asia in the early C20th
Amount: £2,940
Funding Source: Nuffield Foundation, 1991

Purpose of Study: The Emergence of Modern Capitalism in South-East Asia 1890-1941
Amount: £105,099
Time Period: 1990-93
Funding Source: ESSRC

Purpose of Study: Indian Capital Transformation in Asia
Amount: £75,000
Funding Source: Leverhulme
Time Period: 1988-90