Yuen Yuen Ang

Yuen Yuen Ang^[a] is a Singaporean professor of political science and author of two books: How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (2016), named one of the "Best Books of 2017" by Foreign Affairs,^[1][2] and China's Gilded Age (2020). She is the Alfred Chandler Chair of Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University.^[3]

Yuen Yuen Ang
洪源远
Born	Singapore
Occupation	Alfred Chandler Chair Professor of Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University
Awards	Theda Skocpol Prize (APSA), 2020
Academic background
Alma mater	Colorado College Stanford University (PhD)
Thesis	State, market, and bureau-contracting in reform China (2010)
Doctoral advisor	Jean C. Oi
Academic work
Institutions	Columbia University University of Michigan Johns Hopkins University

Yuen Yuen Ang
Simplified Chinese	洪源远
Traditional Chinese	洪源遠
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Hóng Yuányuǎn Yue: Cantonese Jyutping Hung4 Jyun4-jyun5 Southern Min Hokkien POJ Âng Guân-hn̄g Teochew Peng'im Ang5 Nguêng5-iêng2

Early life and education

Ang was born in Singapore.^[4] She studied at Colorado College and received a Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University in 2010.

Career

Ang was an assistant professor at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University in 2010–2011, and in 2011 became an associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan. On 12 January 2023, she became the first newly named professor at the Center for Economy and Society (CES) and the Department of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University's Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.^[5]

Ang's research focuses on the interactions between industrial development, technological innovation, and political structures, with an emphasis on China.

She is also active in public policy debates, and her opinion columns have been published in Foreign Affairs and Project Syndicate, among others.^[6][7] She has been interviewed on Freakonomics Radio and the Ezra Klein Show, among other outlets.^[8]

In 2023, Ang was appointed Alfred Chandler Chair of Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University.^[9]

Analysis

Ang describes China's decentralized economic policymaking process as "directed improvisation", in which the central government establishes policy directives and local governments determine policy details and implementation.^[10]: 30

In her 2016 book, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap, Ang writes that the Chinese state harnessed weak institutions to develop markets and provided favorable conditions for institutions and markets to mutually develop.^[10]: 180

Publications

Books

• How China Escaped the Poverty Trap, Cornell University Press: Cornell Studies in Political Economy, 2016
• China's Gilded Age: The Paradox of Economic Boom and Vast Corruption, Cambridge University Press, 2020

Articles

• "Is China Back?" The Wire China, 22 January 2023^[11]
• "The Problem with Zero", Foreign Affairs, 2 December 2022^[12]
• "How Resilient Is the CCP?" Journal of Democracy, July 2022^[13]
• "Decoding Xi Jinping", Foreign Affairs, 8 December 2021^[14]
• "Demystifying Belt and Road", Foreign Affairs, 22 May 2019^[15]
• "The Real China Model", Foreign Affairs, 29 June 2018^[16]
• "Autocracy with Chinese Characteristics", Foreign Affairs, 16 April 2018^[17]

Awards

• 2017 Peter Katzenstein Book Prize^[18]
• 2017 Foreign Affairs "Best of Books" for How China Escaped the Poverty Trap^[19]
• 2018 Andrew Carnegie Fellow for "high-caliber scholarship that applies fresh perspectives to the most pressing issues of our times"^[20]
• 2020 Theda Skocpol Prize, awarded by the American Political Science Association for "impactful contributions to the study of comparative politics"^[21]
• 2022 Douglass North Best Book Prize, awarded by the Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics^[22]
• 2022 Alice Amsden Book Award, awarded by the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics^[23]

Notes

1. In this Chinese name, the family name is Ang.