Peking University, Oct.26, 2011: Professor Justin Lin Yifu, senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank, is invited to deliver a keynote speech at the eighth annual meeting of Beijing Forum, which will be held in Beijing during November 4 and 6, 2011. Professor Lin is also founding director and economic professor of the China Centre for Economic Research (CCER) at Peking University (PKU), as well as corresponding fellow of the British Academy and fellow of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World.

In his current position in the World Bank administration since June 2008, Professor Lin has guided the Bank’s intellectual leadership, playing a key role in shaping the economic research agenda of the institution.

Professor Lin creates many firsts in Mainland China - the first Chinese who went back to motherland after getting Ph.D. in Economics, the first Chinese who published papers on the most authoritative international economics journals, The American Economic Review and The Journal of Political Economy, and so far the one who has the most published papers on international economic journals.

Professor Lin is the last and most important student of Theodore W. Schultz, the winner of Nobel Prize for Economics. After receiving his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago in 1986, he has written 18 books - including The China Miracle: Development Strategy and Economic Reform and Economic Development and Transition: Thought, Strategy, and Viability - and has published more than 100 articles in refereed international journals and collected volumes on history, development, and transition.

As former deputy of China’s People’s Congress, Justin Lin Yifu once served as vice chairman of Committee for Economic Affairs of Chinese People’s Political Consultation Conference, and vice chairman of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce. He worked in several national and international committees, leading groups, and councils on development policy, technology, and environment, including the UN Millennium Task Force on Hunger, the Eminent Persons Group of the Asian Development Bank, the National Committee on United States-China Relations, the Global Agenda Council on the International Monetary System, the Reinventing Bretton Woods Committee; and the Hong Kong-U.S. Business Council.

He was awarded the 1993 and 2001 Sun Yefang Prize (the highest honor for economists in China), the 1993 Policy Article Prize of Centre for International Food and Agricultural Policy at University of Minnesota, the 1997 Sir John Crawford Award of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, the 1999 Best Article Prize of the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, and the Citation Classic Award in 2000 (by the Social Science Citation Index)

In 2007, he gave the Marshall Lecture at Cambridge. There were several similar occasions, such the Simon Kuznets Lecture at Yale, and the UNU Wider Annual Lecture in Mozambique - the first ever held in a developing country.

Professor Lin was given the honorary doctoral degrees from University D’Auvergne, Fordham University, Nottingham University and City University of Hong Kong. Most recently, he was awarded the Professional Achievement Award by the University of Chicago Alumni Association. He is a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Academy of Sciences for Developing World.

Professor Lin is a chaser after his dream. In his earlier age, four crucial choices astonished people while fostered the later glory of his life: swimming the Taiwan Strait and coming to the mainland in 1979; finishing his study in US and going back to China in 1987; sticking in academy instead of being an officer; leaving PKU and becoming senior vice president of the World Bank in 2008. Lin has his reason, “Being the senior vice president of the World Bank, I can do more intensive research and discussion about the opportunities and constraints China is faced with. So I am able to put forward some fitted solutions together with governments and research institutes all over the world.”

Written by: Jiang Zhaohui
Edited by: Arthars
Source: Beijing Forum