Hi!👋 I’m Adam Muhtar

Welcome to my personal webpage, thanks for stopping by!

A little bit about me 🖖

I’m a data scientist at the Bank of England, working on NLP/machine learning-based projects for the Prudential Regulation Authority. The views expressed here are my own and does not represent the views of the Bank of England.

Previously, I was researcher at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, University of Cambridge, working with Professor Diane Coyle to better understand institutional structures responsible for industrial and economic policies in the UK from a computational social science perspective, part of the wider work run by the Productivity Institute. I dabbled in the use of text as data in economics research, analysing stuff from government policy documents and to patent publications 📑 Other than that, I helped supervise Dr Pieter van Houten’s undergraduate statistics course, introducing students to the amazing world of R (and Python, if they ask) 📊 Prior to that, I was an economist within Malaysia’s policymaking circles, meandering in all sorts of economics-related fields from trade policy to public finance management.

I think it’s fair to say that I’ve had a rather unconventional career trajectory—my professional experiences took place in the days leading to and following from Malaysia’s landmark 2018 general elections (i.e. the elections that ended the country’s 61-year de facto one-party rule since independence from Britain in 1957), before drastic whole-of-life change by migrating to the UK:

I started out as a researcher at the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund’s research institute, where I dabbled in things ranging from international trade negotiations to analysing macroeconomic development trajectory of the country.
After Malaysia’s historic 2018 elections, I did my bit to help out with what I can as an officer at the Prime Minister’s advisory council (Malaysia’s Council of Eminent Persons).
This was followed by a small intermission period in my public service career, where I joined the private sector as an economist for a bank under Dr Donald Hanna.
Rejoined the public sector as an economist for Malaysia’s capital market regulator, working in all sorts of things for the government up until the early days of the pandemic.

Throughout this whole time, I’ve had the great privilege of working with some truly fantastic people, such as Allen Ng, Professor Jomo Kwame Sundaram, and Professor Diane Coyle.

I am currently doing a Master’s programme in Machine Learning and Data science at Imperial College London—prior to this, I studied Public Policy at the University of Cambridge and Economics from the London School of Economics. These were made possible through generous funding from scholarships, of which I am deeply grateful: Tunku Fund and Khazanah Scholarship.

Some extra bits about myself:

I split my time between London and Cambridge. If you’d like to meet up, let me know via 🐦Twitter or ✉️Email.
My first name is Musaddiq, but I go by my middle name, Adam 🙂
I’m also interested in ways to ween off economists’ reliance on Stata 🙃

Selection of stuff I’ve written 👨🏻‍💻

Leveraging language models for prudential supervision
with Dragos Gorduza
Bank Underground

Assessing policy co-ordination in government: Text and network analysis of the UK’s economic strategies
with Diane Coyle
European Journal of Political Economy
Code & Data

Levelling up policies and the failure to learn
with Diane Coyle
Contemporary Social Science

You’re not speaking my language: policy discontinuity and coordination gaps between the UK’s national economic strategies and its place-based policies
with Diane Coyle
Bennett Institute for Public Policy Working Paper
Code & Data

UK’s Industrial Policy: Learning from the Past?
with Diane Coyle
Productivity Insights Paper No. 002, The Productivity Institute

Financial Development: Catalysing Economic Development in Malaysia
with Allen Ng
Box article in “Securities Commission Malaysia Annual Report 2019”, pp. 104–108

Structure of the Malaysian Economy: An Input-Output Analysis
with Alyssa Farha Jasmin, Gregory Ho Wai Son & Aidonna Jan Ayub
Khazanah Research Institute Report

Introduction to Malaysia’s Trade Policies
with Nungsari Ahmad Radhi & Adibah Abdulhadi
Chapter 2 of “Malaysia’s Trade Governance at a Crossroads”, Pierre Sauvé (ed.), pp. 45–74

Reclaiming Malaysia’s Public Finances: The Case for an Independent Fiscal Institution in Malaysia
with Allen Ng
Policy brief submitted to Malaysia’s Council of Eminent Persons

Why Trade Matters: Trade Issues in Non-communicable Diseases, Essential Medicines and Education
with Alyssa Farha Jasmin, Nazihah Muhamad Noor, Nur Thuraya Sazali & Aidonna Jan Ayub
Khazanah Research Institute Report