Melati Nungsari
Deputy Dean for Research, Asia School of Business
International Faculty Fellow at MIT
Area of Expertise:
Industrial Organization, Market Design (Search and Matching), Labor Economics, Public Economics, Economic Education
Dr. Melati Nungsari is an Associate Professor of Economics at the Asia School of Business and a Research Affiliate at MIT Sloan School of Management. She is an applied microeconomist specializing in industrial organization, public economics, market design, and economic education.
She received her Bachelors of Arts in Mathematics and Economics (Magna Cum Laude) with Honors in Mathematics from Knox College and her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on two-sided matching platforms with search, and how firms use pricing to correct for negative externalities on the platform. She also studies public policy issues such as the labor market integration of refugees, policy design for retirement markets in Chile and Malaysia, and labor market discrimination. Additionally, she has published research on pedagogy in economic education.
While at UNC-Chapel Hill, Dr. Melati was a Chancellor’s Fellow with the Royster Society. She has won multiple teaching awards throughout her career, and is also a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the most prestigious academic honor society in the United States. She is an active Op-Ed writer and her pieces have appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly and the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Prior to joining ASB, Dr. Melati was a professor of economics at Davidson College at Butler University. She has given research talks all over the world, and is originally from Penang, Malaysia.
- (Journal Article) Nungsari, M., Dedrick, M., and Patel, S. (2017) Team-Teaching an Interdisciplinary First-Year Seminar on Magic, Religion, and the Origins of Science: A “Pieces-to-Picture” Approach”. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Vol. 17, No. 1, February 2017, 24-36.
- (Book Chapter) Egana del Sol, P., and Nungsari, M. (2019) The Sharing Economy and the Future of Energy. Encyclopedia of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: Affordable and Clean Energy, Springer – Nature, forthcoming. ISSN: 2523-3084.
- (Textbook) Abd. Rahman, F., Abd. Rahim N.A., Nungsari M., Flanders, S., and Alshershaby, D. (2018). Modul Bertutur Bahasa Melayu: Aras Permulaan (A Basic Conversational Malay Language Curriculum for Non-Native Adult Speakers). ISBN forthcoming.
- Citi Foundation Capacity-Building Grant for the Rapid Youth Success Entrepeneurship Program (RYSE) – USD $80,000 – This funding was given for a randomized controlled trial study to design, execute, and assess the impact of entrepeneurship and design-thinking skills on the socio-emotional and economic outcomes of low-income students at community colleges in Klang Valley, Malaysia – January 2019 – December 2020.
- United Nations High Commissioners for Refugees – USD $5,000 – Funding for a research project titled “Measuring the Impact of Language Interventions on the Economic Outcomes of Refugees in Malaysia – January 2018 – July 2018.
- Nungsari, M. Platforms and Power. The Edge Weekly. 12 April 2018.
- Nungsari, M. Ideas to Curb our Brain Drain. The Edge Weekly. 8 January 2018
- Nungsari, M. We Solved Our 2-Body Problem — by Moving to Malaysia. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 18 June 2017.
- “Using Classroom Experiments To Teach Market Design and Matching Theory” with Sam Flanders. Under review at Economic Inquiry.
- “Pricing and Incentives in Defined Contribution Systems” with Marcela Parada-Contzen (PUC-Chile) and Sam Flanders (ASB). Under review at the Journal of Pension Economics and Finance.
- “Searching for Yourself: A Model of Pricing on a Two-Sided Matching Platform with Horizontally- Differentiated Agents” Preparing for the Journal of Economics Teaching.
- “Quality Versus Fit: Market Design and Externalities on Multidimensional Matching Platforms” with Sam Flanders (ASB). Preparing for the Quarterly Journal of Economics.
- “Problem Formulation and Cognitive Learning in Culturally Diverse Teams” with Ambra Mazzelli (ASB).
- 2017 World Bank Group Research Seminar, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, October 24.
- 24th Eurasia Business and Economics Society Conference, Bangkok, Thailand, January 10-12, 2018.
- 2018 World Bank Group Research Seminar, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 15.
- Yale-NUS Department of Economics Research Seminar, Singapore, March 26, 2018.
- 2018 Annual European Search and Matching Conference, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, May 23-25.
- 2018 National Conference on Teaching and Research in Economic Education (Hosted by the American Economic Association), San Antonio, TX, May 30 – June 1.
