Hans-Peter Brunner is a doctorate from University of Maryland, College Park, specialising in industrial organisation, technological change, trade, economic growth and political economy. He has taught economics at universities in Germany (1991–95).

He has also served as a consultant to international organizations (EU, World Bank) and governments (Science Center Berlin and US A.I.D.). He has been working with Asian Development Bank (ADB) since December 1995. His key areas of focus have been economic development, international and sub-regional trade, investment and finance, corporate and financial governance, project-finance and public private partnerships.

He has published in internationally ranked, peer reviewed economics journals, such as Review of Development Economics, World Development, Eastern Economic Journal, Small Business Economics and Journal of Asian Economics, among others. Books published by him include Productivity, Competitiveness and Incomes in Asia—An Evolutionary Theory of International Trade (2005) and Closing the Technology Gap—Technological Change in India’s Computer Industry (1995). Areas of current research include evolutionary economics and poverty alleviation, regional evolutionary and network modeling approach, regional economic integration and economic geography.