Shaun Wee

I'm a grad student pursuing an MA in Philosophy at the National University of Singapore. Here's my resume so far. Alternatively, here's my CV. Here's my GitHub.

I am interested in the political economy of markets, firms, and corporate power. To that end, I have experience with:

Research projects inspecting worker incentives within firms, information markets, and reputation within peer networks
Coding agent-based models (Python & NetLogo) to inspect decision-making, cultural evolution, and emergent behaviour
Global macro analysis and equity research on technology firms

I am also pursuing work on the market-shaping power of firms, the nature of AI-based capital, and future models of workplace arrangements.

Working Ideas

Here's a non-exhaustive list of things I'm thinking about. It's not formal.

Epistemic Communities In Bad Information Environments

We sometimes think that scientists should be truth-seeking - so that the community they are in will reach the truth. I show that you can have communities full of truth-seekers that still lead to bad collective outcomes. This is because of the wider context where the community might be placed in a bad information environment. In other words, that the signals they receive from nature are largely unreliable.

Placing AI (LLMs) Into Agent-Based Modelling

The idea is that with developments in AI, we could try observe the reasoning of agents in more complex scenarios. This comes in two parts. First, the methodological development for characterising agent's reasoning and rationalisations. Second, exploring how to tune such models for useful applications.

Modelling Collective Enforcement Of Norms And Rules

Following from the above, I think we could have agents decide on the rules that they themselves want to support. So the first level is following the rules and making decisions from them. Second is deciding on the rules to enforce with each other. Third is to have an overarching rationale or motivation for how to decide on which rules to support. Perhaps we can observe how the structure of a community evolves over time, rather than only observing how behaviour evolves over time.

Corporate Power As Quasi-Political Power

Making the case that politically motivated actors should also consider economic signals seriously. Often, we are comfortable with the idea that economic actors should consider political signals - such as firms considering wider values. But it should also be the case that if you care about wider values (as some activists do), then you should also seriously consider economic signals. I want to argue that corporate power as quasi-political power means plans for political engagement demand an address of corporate power. (Forrester, 2024)

Causal Decision Making For Economic Agents

Iterate through several models for how corporate teams in a negotiation (such as a mergers and acquisitions context) update their beliefs in light of sigals received from the other party. Examples include a distraction model where one party sends signals unrelated to the issue at hand; a confounding model where a factor with shared causal responsibility is introduced (such as public pressure); and a model of multiple effects - where it is hard to attribute the cause to any one factor. (O' Connor & Freeborn, 2025)

Modelling The Feasibility Of Transitioning To A Workplace Democracy

I use agent based modelling to assess the feasibility of transitioning a workplace to a workplace democracy. This focuses on the cultural attitudes and collective decision-making among peers in a given firm.

Modelling Rationalisation Markets

How the demand for rationalisation may be modelled, within the context of peer networks. In-group and out-group dynamics seem relevant. (Williams, 2023)

Intellectual Humility Among Peers

Inspecting precisely how humility acts against reputation and status. Interesting avenues include modelling the evolutionary dynamics of a community over time. (Karabegovic & Mercier, 2023)

Interest Topics

Things that I am curious about.

The political economy of AI
International wealth and capital (tax structures, markets, and capital flight)
Workplace democracy and participatory management
Financialisation, asset management, and corporate power
Computational models in python, with focus on agent-based models

Side Engagements

Teaching and Education

I am focusing on developing my skills in communication and education as a teaching assistant in university-level courses. The topics revolve around philosophy. Core duties include class management, teaching, and grading.

Contact me at:

shaunwee at u dot nus dot edu
www.linkedin.com/in/shaunweesy/