Speaker > Biography

Biography of Professor Lawrence J. Lau

Born on the mainland of China in 1944, Professor Lawrence J. Lau received his primary and secondary schooling at St Paul’s Co-educational College in Hong Kong. He furthered his studies in the United States, graduating with a B.S. (with Great Distinction) in Physics and Economics from Stanford University in 1964, and receiving 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 at Stanford University in 1966, becoming Professor of Economics in 1976 and the first Kwoh-Ting Li Professor of Economic Development at Stanford University in 1992. From 1992 to 1996, he served as a Co-Director of the Asia-Pacific Research Centre at Stanford University, and from 1997 to 1999, as the Director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.

An internationally famous economist, Professor Lau specializes in economic development, economic growth, and the economies of East Asia, including that of China. He developed in 1966 one of the first econometric models of China, which he has continued to revise and update ever since.

He is a Member of Phi Beta Kappa and 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 was awarded the degree of Doctor of Social Sciences, honoris causa, by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 1999. He is also a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the Centre for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He has authored or edited five books and published more than one hundred and sixty articles and notes in professional journals.

Professor Lau has been rendering academic and professional services to a large number of institutions. He is an Honorary Research Fellow of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, and an Honorary Professor of the Institute of Systems Science at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jilin University, Nanjing University, People's University, Shantou University, Southeast University and the School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University. He is also an International Adviser to the National Bureau of Statistics on the mainland, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, Taipei.

On 1 July 2004, Professor Lawrence J. Lau assumed office as Vice-Chancellor of The Chinese University of Hong Kong.