Bradley Wong

Dr. Brad Wong is a global expert in cost-benefit / social return-on-investment analysis of international development projects. The focus of his career is helping governments and philanthropists maximize the impact of the money they have to do good? He has advised and collaborated with the Malawian National Planning Commission, the Ghanaian National Development Planning Commission, the Government of Haiti, the African Academy of Sciences, the UN in Bangladesh, the Government of India’s think tank, NITI Aayog and Policy Exchange, a UK think tank.

Brad is the Founder and Director of Mettalytics Consulting, Senior Economist Advisor at the Copenhagen Consensus Center and part of the presenting faculty on Harvard’s executive education course, Valuing Life  and Health. He has overseen or contributed to more than 400 economic analyses covering areas as diverse as agriculture, nutrition, education, health, governance, water and sanitation and the environment.

The work he has been a part of has had a demonstrable impact on policy, for example in Haiti, where the results from Copenhagen Consensus research compelled the President to implement wheat flour fortification, affecting hundreds of thousands of Haitians and generating social impact worth hundreds of millions of dollars. In May 2020, Brad led the development of a cost-benefit report of COVID lockdowns in Malawi, the first analysis of its kind for the developing world. The research, commissioned by the National Planning Commission of Malawi, shaped government COVID policy, and was covered in all major newspapers of  Malawi.

Brad’s research has been featured in international media such as The Economist, LA Times, The South China  Morning Post, and Wall St Journal. For example, an analysis he co-authored on the return on investment in global health was featured in a Wall St Journal opinion article by Bill Gates as ‘The best investment [he’s] ever made’.

Brad is a board member of the Society for Benefit Cost Analysis, which publishes the Journal of Benefit Cost Analysis. He is the Section Editor on a forthcoming chapter in Oxford University Press’s Encyclopedia on Water, Sanitation and Global Health, focusing on the economics of water and sanitation investments in low and middle income countries. Brad co-authored the Reference Case Guidelines for Benefit-Cost Analysis in Global Health and Development a Harvard led research project, funded by the Gates Foundation that aims to set standards for the estimation of social return on investment in international development.

Brad is on the advisory board of Fortify Health, an Indian NGO that helps local millers to fortify wheat to address key nutrition deficiencies. Brad holds a PhD in Economics and Finance from the University of Sydney. Prior to becoming a development economist he was a management consultant at Booz & Co.