Stephen is a Professor of Economics at the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University. He is the Director of the Development Policy Centre.

Stephen served as Director of the International and Development Economics program of the Crawford School from 2009-14. He edited Devpolicy.org, the blog of the Development Policy Centre from 2011-23. He was Editor in Chief of the Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies journal from 2019-22. He has directed the ANU-UPNG Partnership since 2012.

Prior to joining the Crawford School in 2009, Stephen was Chief Economist at the Australian Agency for International Development. He worked from 1994-2005 at the World Bank, first in Washington and then in Delhi, where he was Lead Economist for India. In 2008, he worked on the Garnaut Review on Climate Change, where he managed the Review’s international work stream.

In 2005, while working for AusAID, Stephen was a member of the three-person Core Group whose report formed the basis for the 2006 Australian Aid White Paper. In 2010-11, Stephen was a member of the five-person panel that wrote the Independent Review of [Australian] Aid Effectiveness. In 2016, he served as a member of the Australia-Pacific Technical College Design Reference Group. In 2021, he chaired an interdepartmental working group established by the Department of Foreign Affairs to promote Pacific participation in Australia’s Temporary Skills Shortage Visa. In 2022-23, he was a member of the External Advisory Group for Australia’s 2023 international development policy. From 2022-2025, Stephen was a member of the Advisory Group appointed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme.

From 2021-2023, Stephen was a member of the Independent Advisory Group (IAG) appointed by the PNG Treasurer to review PNG’s 2000 Central Banking Act. You can read the IAG’s first-phase report here. Stephen has also been an adviser to PNG’s 2025 and 2026 RESET@50 exercise.

Stephen is Chair of Femili PNG, an Papua New Guinean NGO that supports survivors of family and sexual violence in PNG. He is also Treasurer of Bel isi, a public-private partnership that responds to family and sexual violence, and a board member of FemiliPNG Australia.

Stephen served as a Board Member for CARE Australia, and Chair of the CARE Program and Operations Committee from 2012-19. He has previously served on the Board of the Pacific Institute of Public Policy, and on the Advisory Council of the Asian Development Bank Institute.