BIOGRAPHY
Gary Lai is an economist and author whose writing has appeared in the South China Morning Post, the Toronto Star, Le Monde, and the Daily Monitor of Kampala, Uganda, among other publications, on topics ranging from Aboriginal employment in British Columbia to girls' education in Hong Kong.
His first book, Poverty and the Unequal Society in Hong Kong, was published by Penguin Random House SEA in 2021 and won a Goody Business Book Award. It was nominated for several others, including the Cundill History Prize.
His interest in poverty issues led him to found the anti-poverty campaign TKO Poverty at Columbia University in 2005. For his work, he was nominated for a Junior Chamber International Ten Outstanding Young Persons Award.
Lai received a Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of Southern California and a Master of Economics from HKU Business School. He also studied at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Law and Columbia University.
Born in Hong Kong, Lai grew up in Sugar Land, Texas, and Edmonton, Alberta before returning to live in his city of birth in the 2010s and early 2020s, experiencing first-hand the transformation of one of the world’s greatest megalopolises. He currently resides in Vancouver, British Columbia.