Lawrence Lau

Research: Economic theory, economic development, applied economics, East Asian studies
Current Research: Theory and empirical analysis of production and technological change, economic growth of industrialized and newly industrialized countries, econometrics model of China, East Asian currency crisis, economics of transition
Teaching: Microeconomic theory, econometrics, applied microeconomics, economic development

Dr. Lawrence J. Lau, Kwoh-Ting Li Professor of Economic Development, Department of Economics, Stanford University, was born in China in 1944 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1974. He received his B.S. degree in Physics and Economics, with Great Distinction, from Stanford University in 1964, and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1966 and 1969 respectively. He joined the faculty of the Department of Economics, Stanford University, in 1966 and was promoted to Professor of Economics in 1976. In 1992, he was named the first Kwoh-Ting Li Professor of Economic Development at Stanford University. From 1992 to 1996, he served as a Co-Director of the Asia/Pacific Research Center, Stanford University. From 1997 to 1999, he served as the Director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), Stanford University. He is also a Senior Fellow of SIEPR (by courtesy), the Institute for International Studies (by courtesy) and the Hoover Institution (by courtesy), Stanford University. His specialized fields are Economic Theory, Economic Development, Economic Growth, and the Economies of East Asia, including China. He developed one of the first econometric models of China, in 1966, and has continued to revise and update his model since then.

Dr. Lau has been elected a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a member of Tau Beta Pi, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, an Academician of Academia Sinica, a Member of the Conference for Research in Income and Wealth, an Overseas Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, England, an Honorary Member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and an Academician of the International Eurasian Academy of Sciences. He has been awarded the degree of Doctor of Social Sciences, honoris causa, by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He has been a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow and a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He has served and continues to serve on editorial boards of numerous professional economics journals. He is the author or editor of five books—Farmer Education and Farm Efficiency (with Dean T. Jamison), Models of Development: A Comparison of Economic Growth in South Korea and Taiwan, Econometrics and the Cost of Capital: Essays in Honor of Dale W. Jorgenson, North Korea in Transition: Prospects for Economic and Social Reform (with Chang-Ho Yoon), and U.S. Direct Investment in China (with Kwok- Chiu Fung and Joseph S. Lee)—and more than one hundred and sixty articles and notes in professional publications.

Amongst his many professional activities, Dr. Lau is an Honorary Research Fellow of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Shanghai; an Honorary Professor of the Institute of Systems Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, the College of Management, Tsing Hua University, Beijing, People’s University, Beijing, Shantou University, Shantou, Nanjing University, Nanjing, and Southeast University, Nanjing; a member of the Board of Directors of the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, Taipei and an International Advisor, National Bureau of Statistics, People’s Republic of China.