U-C Davis economist to deliver Sichel talk on 'awakened China'

Contact: Mark Schwerin
Photo of Dr. Wing Woo.

Woo

KALAMAZOO, Mich.—An economics professor at the University of California at Davis will speak next month at Western Michigan University as part of the Werner Sichel Lecture Series.

Dr. Wing Thye Woo will speak at noon Wednesday, Oct. 7, in 2028 Brown Hall. His talk, titled "An Assessment of Napoleon's Prediction that an Awakened China Would Shake the World," is free and open to the public. A light lunch reception will be available after the lecture.

Dr. Wing Thye Woo

Woo earned his doctoral degree in economics from Harvard University in 1982. In addition to serving as a professor at U-C Davis, he is president of the Jeffrey Cheah Institute on Southeast Asia in Kuala Lumpur, a distinguished professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, the Chang Jiang Professor at Central University of Finance and Economics in Beijing, director of the East Asia Program within the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York City and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

Woo is an expert on East Asian economies, particularly China, Indonesia and Malaysia. He is the convener of the Asian Economic Panel, a tri-annual forum of 50 leading specialists on Asian economies, and the managing editor of its journal, Asian Economic Papers. He is president-elect of the Chinese Economists Society.

Woo recently co-led an international team to prepare a report for financial reform in China--"Financial Systems at the Crossroads: Lessons for China"--that adapts foreign experiences in financial sector development to suit Chinese conditions.

The Sichel Series

The theme for this year's Werner Sichel Lecture Series is "The Impacts of China's Rise on the Pacific and the World." The series is organized by the WMU Department of Economics and named in honor of Werner Sichel, a longtime WMU economics professor and former department chair, who retired in 2004. The series is cosponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, the W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research and the Timothy Light Center for Chinese Studies. The lectures are open to the public and formatted with the general public in mind.

Other dates, presenters and topics in this year's series are:

  • Nov. 11: Dr. Barry J. Naughton, professor of Chinese economy and the Sokwanlok chair of Chinese International Affairs in the graduate school of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego, "Is there a Xi Jinping Model of Economic Reform?"
  • Feb. 24: Dr. Mary E. Lovely, professor of economics and the Melvin A Eggers Economics Faculty Scholar in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, "China's Evolving State Enterprises."
  • March 30: Dr. James G. Wen, professor of economics and international studies at Trinity College, "Why is the Exit Right the Key to the Birth of China's Land Market?"
  • April 13: Dr. Xiaodong Zhu, professor of economics at the University Toronto, "Trade, Migration and Growth: Evidence from China."

This year's series is being organized by Drs. Wei-Chiao Huang and Huizhong Zhou, WMU professors of economics.

For more information, contact Huang at (269) 387-5528 or huang@wmich.edu, or Zhou at (269) 387-5550 or huizhong.zhou@wmich.edu or visit wmich.edu/economics/events.

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