The Hong Kong Labor Symposium, organized by the HKU Business School, will be held from May 29 to 30, 2026, in Hong Kong.
We welcome submissions on all topics related to labor and development economics. We are honored to announce that our keynote speakers this year will be Professor Jeffrey Smith from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Professor Petra Todd from the University of Pennsylvania.
Language: English
Date: 25 November, 2025 (Tuesday)
Registration Time: 6:45 p.m.
Time: 7:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Location: Wang Gungwu Lecture Hall, Graduate House, Main Campus, The University of Hong Kong
Registration: https://hku.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6A6vpIxpvdaukB0
Thomas J. Sargent is an American economist awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2011, jointly with Christopher Sims, for his “empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy.”
Sargent is a central figure in the development of the rational expectations theory. This approach incorporates into macroeconomic models the idea that households and firms form forecasts about the future based on their rational understanding of the economy. His work analyzed the consequences of this theory for the design and effectiveness of monetary and fiscal policy.
He has held professorships at the University of Minnesota, the University of Chicago, and New York University, where he is currently a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Sargent’s research provided a foundational framework for modern macroeconomic analysis.
Programme Rundown*
| 6:45 p.m. | Registration |
| 7:30 p.m. (2 mins)
| Introduction Prof. Yulei Luo |
| 7:32 p.m. (3 mins)
| Welcoming Remarks Prof. Hongbin Cai |
| 7:35 p.m. (30 mins)
| Keynote Session Prof. Thomas J. Sargent |
| 8:05 p.m. (30 mins)
| Dialogue with Prof. Thomas J. Sargent Speakers: Prof. Thomas J. Sargent Prof. Jin Li |
| 8:35 p.m. (15 mins) | Q&A Session |
| 8:50 p.m.
| Photo-taking Session |
| End of Event |
*The rundown is subject to change.
Language: English
Date: 5 November, 2025 (Wednesday)
Time: 5:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.
Location: Loke Yew Hall, Main Building, The University of Hong Kong
Registration: Click Here
Joe Tsai is co-founder and Chairman of Alibaba Group and has served on its board of directors since its inception in 1999. He served as Alibaba’s executive vice chairman, chief financial officer and head of strategic investments.
He is the owner of several American professional sports teams, including the NBA Brooklyn Nets, 2024 WNBA Champions New York Liberty, and the San Diego Seals and Las Vegas Desert Dogs in the National Lacrosse League. He is also an investor in the Premier Lacrosse League.
Joe and his wife Clara are active philanthropists supporting education, research, economic mobility, and arts and culture. Joe is a founding board member of The Asian American Foundation (TAAF), a non-profit whose mission is to combat discrimination and support prosperity and representation for Asian Americans.
Joe is a member of Asia Business Council, J.P. Morgan International Council, EXOR Partners Council, BDT & MSD Partners Advisory Board, and International Advisory Council of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Prior to Alibaba Group, Joe was a private equity investor in Asia for Investor AB of Sweden’s Wallenberg family. He practiced tax law as an associate with Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York. He is a graduate of Yale College (BA ’86) and Yale Law School (JD ’90).
Professor Heiwai Tang
Associate Vice-President (Global), The University of Hong Kong
Associate Dean (External Relations), HKU Business School
Click HERE to register
The Hong Kong Labor Symposium 2025 is scheduled to take place from June 6 (Friday) to June 7 (Saturday) 2025 at KK1121.
| June 6 (Friday) | |
| 9:00 – 10:00 | Keynote Speaker: Hanming Fang |
| 10:00 – 10:30 | Coffee Break |
| 10:30 – 12:30 | Fertility
|
Understanding the Barriers to Paternity Leave-Taking: Evidence from Japan
| |
Workplace Norms and Fertility
| |
Social Institutions and Low Birth Rates
| |
The Motherhood Effect on Earnings amid Declining Fertility: Evidence from Korea
| |
| 12:30 – 14:00 | Lunch |
| 14:00 – 15:30 | Education and Parental Impact
|
Starting Strong: Medium- and Longer-run Benefits of Mexico’s Universal Preschool Mandate
| |
Exporting Education or Importing Labor? The Labor Market Impacts of International Students
| |
Effects of Parental Death on Youth Outcomes
| |
| 15:30 – 16:00 | Coffee break |
| 16:00 – 18:00 | Social preferences
|
Institutional Changes and Social Preferences: Experimental Evidence from a Developing Economy
| |
Wages, taxes, and labor supply elasticities: The role of social preferences
| |
Managers And The Cultural Transmission Of Gender Norms
| |
Quitting Behavior of Gig Manufacturing Workers: Virtual and Offline Peer Effects
| |
| June 7 (Saturday) | |
| 9:00 – 10:00 | Keynote Speaker: Victor Lavy |
| 10:00 – 10:30 | Coffee Break |
| 10:30 – 12:30 | Labor Supply, Productivity, and Match Quality
|
Measuring Labor Market Match Quality with Large Language Models
| |
Habit Formation in Labor Supply
| |
Non-Monotonic Employment Effects of Minimum Wages in Monopsonistic Labour Markets
| |
Managing Through Toxicity: How Words Affect Productivity and Retention
| |
| 12:30 – 14:00 | Lunch |
The Second HKU Macroeconomics Workshop is organized by the HKU Business School, which will be a two-day workshop with twelve papers.
The 2025 conference is scheduled to take place from Sunday, May 25 to Monday, May 26, 2025.
| 9:05 | Opening remark |
Innovation | |
| 9:10-10:00 | Need for Speed: The Quality of Innovations and Inventor Allocation Santiago Caicedo (Northeastern University) |
| 10:00-10:50 | Scalable versus Productive Technologies Serdar Ozkan (St Louis Fed) |
| 10:50-11:10 | Coffee break |
Keynote Speech | |
| 11:10-12:10 | Job Amenity Shocks and Labor Reallocation Gianluca Violante (Princeton) |
| 12:10-14:00 | Lunch |
Labor Market | |
| 14:00-14:50 | Optimal Firm Regulation with Labor Market Monopsony Yena Park (Seoul National University) |
| 14:50-15:40 | Labor Market Friction, Firm Heterogeneity, and Aggregate Employment and Productivity Rasmus Lentz (UW Madison) |
| 15:40-16:00 | Coffee break |
Inventories | |
| 16:00-16:50 | The Role of Sell Frictions for the Cyclical Behavior of Inventories Wouter de Haan (LSE) |
| 18:30 | Dinner |
Government Policy | |
| 9:10-10:00 | Brothers in Arms: Near Equivalence of Monetary and Fiscal Rules Lukasz Rachel (UCL) |
| 10:00-10:50 | Perceived Political Bias of the Federal Reserve Shihan Xie (UIUC) |
| 10:50-11:10 | Coffee break |
Keynote Speech | |
| 11:10-12:10 | Currency Centrality in Equity Markets, Exchange Rates and Global Financial Cycles Hélène Rey (London Business School) |
| 12:10-14:00 | Lunch |
International Macro | |
| 14:00-14:50 | Dollar Debt and the Inefficient Global Financial Cycle Paul Fontanier (Yale SOM) |
| 14:50-15:10 | Coffee Break |
Finance | |
| 15:10-16:00 | The Origin of Risk Alexandr Kopytov (Simon U Rochester) |
| 16:00-16:50 | The Dependence of Belief Dynamics on Beliefs: Implications for Stock Returns Pooya Molavi (Northwestern University) |
| 18:30 | Dinner |
Date: 7 November, 2024 (Thursday)
Time: 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Location: Loke Yew Hall, Main Building, The University of Hong Kong
Registration: Click Here
Global supply chains have faced tremendous stresses from geopolitical friction, disaster disruptions, and increasing stakeholder interests on sustainability. At the same time, technologies have offered innovations for corporations to create opportunities. In this lecture, Professor Hau Lee will outline three strategic challenges that confront corporations in this turbulent time, and share his views on how the Mainland and Hong Kong could be in a position to gain control of such challenges.
Hau L. Lee
Hau L. Lee is the Thoma Professor Emeritus of Operations, Information and Technology at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. His areas of specialization include global supply chain management, entrepreneurship and innovations in developing economies, and value chain strategy.
Professor Lee has published widely in journals such as Management Science, Operations Research, Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Supply Chain Management Review, IIE Transactions, and Interfaces, etc. He has served on the editorial boards of many international journals. From 1997-2003, he was the Editor-in-Chief of Management Science.
Professor Lee was inducted to the US National Academy of Engineering in 2010. He was elected a Fellow of Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, 2001; Production and Operations Management Society, 2005; and INFORMS, 2005. In 2006-7, he was the President of the Production and Operations Management Society. His article, “The Triple-A Supply Chain,” was the Second Place Winner of the McKinsey Award for the Best Paper in 2004 in the Harvard Business Review. In 2004, his co-authored paper in 1997, “Information Distortion in a Supply Chain: The Bullwhip Effect,” was voted as one of the ten most influential papers in the history of Management Science. His co-authored paper, “The Impact of Logistics Performance on Trade,” won the Wickham Skinner Best Paper Award by the Production and Operations Management Society in 2014. In 2003, he received the Harold Lardner Prize for International Distinction in Operations Research, Canadian Operations Research Society.
Professor Lee has consulted extensively in the private sector. He co-founded DemandTec, a price-optimization company that went public in NASDAQ in 2007. He is an independent non-executive director of TD Synnex, Silvaco, and the Lion Rock Group.
Professor Lee obtained his B.Soc.Sc. degree in Economics and Statistics from the University of Hong Kong in 1974, his M.Sc. degree in Operational Research from the London School of Economics in 1975, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Operations Research from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1983. He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Engineering degree by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, an Honorary Doctorate from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam, Honorary Doctorate in Management from Macau University, and Honorary Doctor of Science in Economics from the London Business School..
Ms. Marjorie Yang
Chairman of Esquel Group
Professor Max Shen
Vice-President and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research), Chair Professor in Logistics and Supply Chain Management, HKU
Mr. Andy Tung
Vice Chairman of China-United States Exchange Foundation
Click HERE to register
Live Streaming on YouTube: https://youtube.com/live/1jhxMXlqZT8
The Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) is delighted to invite Professor Sali LI, Professor of Darla Moore School of Business at University of South Carolina to deliver a talk on May 3, 2024 at The University of Hong Kong. Details are as follows:
| Date and Time: | May 3, 2024 (Friday) | 3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. |
| Venue: | KK301, 3/F, K.K. Leung Building, HKU, Pokfulam |
| Format: | Face-to-face in English |
| Registration: | Registration is not required |
| Event Details: | Please refer to the event site for details. |
Speakers’ Bio:
Professor,
Darla Moore School of Business,
University of South Carolina
Sali Li is a professor in the Sonoco International Business Department at the Darla Moore School of Business. Prior to joining the Moore School, he was an assistant professor at the Lubar School of Business at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. He is a member of the Academy of International Business, Academy of Management and Strategic Management Society. Additionally, he has served on the editorial boards of Journal of International Management and Journal of Management.
Professor Li’s primary research interests cover multinational strategy, revisiting the resource based view and international entrepreneurship with particular focus on emerging economies. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Academy of Management Review, Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Decision Sciences, Journal of International Management, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Management and Strategic Management Journal.
Abstract:
Despite the power of AI technology to boost productivity, the challenges faced by complementors in an ecosystem to create value from such technologies remain understudied. We unveil the discontinuities afflicting complementors’ product offerings when deploying ecosystem-sponsored AI technologies, and we introduce two distinct alignment strategies, technological and flow alignment, which allow complementors to utilize the ecosystem leader’s AI technology and orchestration efforts in buffering their products from the discontinuities. By studying Apple’s release of an artificial intelligence kit, Core ML, in its mobile ecosystem, we provide robust empirical support for our hypotheses. This study contributes to our understanding of architectural evolution and ecosystem strategy.
Enquiry:
Please contact us at cieinfo@hku.hk for any enquiries.
About CIE:
The Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) is committed to connect research and practice, and create a vibrant and diverse community of entrepreneurs and innovators to drive positive changes in Hong Kong and Greater Bay Area.
With our teams and resources inside and outside Hong Kong, we aim at bridging the ecosystems in China and overseas.
The Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) at HKU Business School proudly presents the Executive Insights Series – a forum bringing together business executives, entrepreneurs and innovators to share their experiences with the HKU community.
We are pleased to invite Mr. Roc Yang, an experienced venture capitalist from C3 Capital to share with us the latest entrepreneurship and venture capital situations on March 15, 2024 at The University of Hong Kong. It is a great opportunity for students and young professionals to gain invaluable strategic and practical insights. Don’t miss your chance to hear directly from Mr. Yang on the latest trends. Details are as follows:
| Date and Time: | March 15, 2024 (Friday) | 3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. |
| Venue: | KK 1121, 11/F, K.K. Leung Building, HKU, Pokfulam |
| Format: | Face-to-face in Mandarin |
| Registration: | Registration is not required |
Speaker:
Enquiry:
Please contact us at cieinfo@hku.hk for any enquiries.
About CIE:
Sponsored by HKU Business School, the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) is committed to connect research and practice, and create a vibrant and diverse community of entrepreneurs and innovators to drive positive changes in Hong Kong and Greater Bay Area.
With our teams and resources inside and outside Hong Kong, we aim at bridging the ecosystems in China and overseas.
