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Yuen Yuen Ang 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, and China's Gilded Age (2020). She is the Alfred Chandler Chair of Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University.

Early life and education

Ang was born in Singapore. 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.

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. She has been interviewed on Freakonomics Radio and the Ezra Klein Show, among other outlets.

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

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.

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.

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
• "The Problem with Zero", Foreign Affairs, 2 December 2022
• "How Resilient Is the CCP?" Journal of Democracy, July 2022
• "Decoding Xi Jinping", Foreign Affairs, 8 December 2021
• "Demystifying Belt and Road", Foreign Affairs, 22 May 2019
• "The Real China Model", Foreign Affairs, 29 June 2018
• "Autocracy with Chinese Characteristics", Foreign Affairs, 16 April 2018

Awards

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

Notes

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

References

1. "The Best of Books 2017". Foreign Affairs. 6 July 2020.
2. Andrew J. Nathan (15 December 2017). "How China Escaped the Poverty Trap, by Yuen Yuen Ang". Foreign Affairs.
3. "Yuen Yuen Ang". Political Science. 3 January 2023. Retrieved 1 February 2024.
4. Dubner, Stephen J. Dubner (3 November 2021). "Is the U.S. Really Less Corrupt Than China? (Ep. 481)". Freakonomics. Retrieved 4 November 2021.
5. "Political Economist Yuen Yuen Ang Joins SNF Agora Faculty : Stavros Niarchos Foundation SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins".
6. Yuen Yuen Ang (May–June 2018). "Autocracy with Chinese characteristics: Beijing's behind-the-scenes reforms". Foreign Affairs.
7. Yuen Yuen Ang (28 October 2020). "The False Dichotomy of Autocracy and Democracy". Project Syndicate.
8. "Opinion | There's Been a Revolution in How China Is Governed". The New York Times. 24 January 2023. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 27 February 2023.
9. "Political Economist Yuen Yuen Ang Joins SNF Agora Faculty". snfagora.jhu. 12 January 2023. Retrieved 15 May 2023.
10. ^ Liu, Lizhi (2024). From Click to Boom: The Political Economy of E-Commerce in China. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691254104.
11. Ang, Yuen Yuen (23 January 2023). "Is China Back?". The Wire China. Retrieved 1 February 2024.
12. Ang, Yuen Yuen (2 December 2022). "The Problem With Zero". Foreign Affairs. ISSN 0015-7120. Retrieved 1 February 2024.
13. "How Resilient Is the CCP?". Journal of Democracy. Retrieved 1 February 2024.
14. Ang, Yuen Yuen (8 December 2021). "Decoding Xi Jinping". Foreign Affairs. ISSN 0015-7120. Retrieved 1 February 2024.
15. Ang, Yuen Yuen (22 May 2019). "Demystifying Belt and Road". Foreign Affairs. ISSN 0015-7120. Retrieved 1 February 2024.
16. Ang, Yuen Yuen (29 June 2018). "The Real China Model". Foreign Affairs. ISSN 0015-7120. Retrieved 1 February 2024.
17. Ang, Yuen Yuen (16 April 2018). "Autocracy With Chinese Characteristics". Foreign Affairs. No. May/June 2018. ISSN 0015-7120. Retrieved 1 February 2024.
18. "Peter Katzenstein Book Prize". Cornell University Department of Government.
19. Nathan, Andrew J. (15 December 2017). "How China Escaped the Poverty Trap". Foreign Affairs. ISSN 0015-7120. Retrieved 28 May 2023.
20. "Meet 2018 Carnegie Fellow". Political Science Now. 17 August 2018.
21. "Dr. Yuen Yuen Ang Awarded Theda Skocpol Prize". Stanford University. 15 September 2020.
22. "Winner of the 2022 Douglass North Best Book Prize | SIOE". www.sioe.org. Retrieved 27 February 2023.
23. Bromberg, Jacob (21 June 2022). "SASE 2022 Alice Amsden Best Book Award". SASE. Retrieved 28 May 2023.

External links

• Official website
• Yuen Yuen Ang publications indexed by Google Scholar

• Singaporean women academics
• University of Michigan faculty
• Johns Hopkins University faculty
• Living people
• Stanford University alumni
• Colorado College alumni