A Warm Welcome to New Faculty Members
In the academic year 2018-19, the Faculty welcomes seven faculty members. They are all distinguished scholars and experts in their respective fields.
 Professor James Kai-sing KUNG | My research interests span the economic history of China, its institutions and its political economy of development, Particularly, I am interested in the civil exam system, ’keju’, because this meritocratic system for selecting officials based on a series of exams appeared in Song Dynasty of ancient China almost 800 years before a similar system was introduced in Europe. This institution has likely bred a culture of valuing education. The meritocratic nature of the civil exam system has an intriguingly strong parallel with the bedrock of China’s economic reforms — one designed to reward individual officials who have achieved robust economic growth in their administrative jurisdictions with promotion to the next level. As an undergraduate, in order to broaden my horizon I took as many electives as possible: anthropology, comparative literature, economic history, philosophy, you name it. |
‘Experience suggests that passion and curiosity are important elements of success in one’s career’
Professor Jin LI | My main research area lies at the intersection of organisational economics, personnel economics, and labour economics. My research focuses on the dynamics of informal relationships and explores how firms can design organisations — by choosing organisational structure, allocating decision rights, adopting performance review and compensation methods — to align incentives and build trust. This research sheds light on how organisational design can be a source of competitive advantage. I became interested in these topics because they are obviously important, extremely relevant, and fundamentally, immensely fun to work on. |
‘Stay open, stay curious, and keep learning new and exciting things’
Dr. Shuqing LUO | My research interests are mainly in the role of information in facilitating managers and capital market participants to make sound decisions. Toward this end, I researched 1) the incentive design that helps achieve the desired organisational purposes; 2) the type of information and the quality of such information that can facilitate the decision-making and incentive design, and mechanisms to obtain this information. My advice for FBE students is never think of college as your final stop in learning. Think of college as the years that shape your learning horizon, and build your self-learning and critical thinking skills. These are much more important for your life and self-development than learning the knowledge from one or two textbooks. |
‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step; work ten years like day’
Dr. Dan YANG | My research interests are mainly in data science, which analyses and enriches data. Modern technology has led to datasets of increasingly large and complex structure, which prohibits the direct application of conventional methodology This type of phenomenon is omnipresent in various areas such as economics, business, finance, biology, healthcare, etc. My primary research focus is to design efficient and effective tools to cope with massive amounts of data, which will eventually advance science, improve business and enhance wellbeing. My advice in my own teaching is always ‘give a man a fish and feed him for a day — yet teach him to fish and feed him for life’, and therefore my advice to students is ‘learn how to fish instead o asking for a fish’, which is the most crucial ability one should learn in college. |
‘Work hard and play hard’
Dr. Jinzhao DU | My research interests lie in the area of multi-sided markets, including media markets and matching markets. The evolution of the media industry is happening at an unprecedented speed. The entire ecosystem involves many participants, including media platforms, advertisers, content suppliers, search engines, ad exchanges, news aggregators, consumers, etc. I believe the research in this area will generate important managerial implications such as media platform pricing, content provision, news aggregation, as well as useful policy guidance. My advice to FBE students is that learning does not only happen in classrooms. In fact, most learning happens outside classrooms. |
‘Be open-minded, make friends, learn from each other, and understand that there are many perspectives of viewing the world’
Dr. Ye LUO | My research interests lie in applying machine learning and AI to economics and finance. On the one hand, the potential and benefits of implementing data technology in areas such as business operations, economics and finance are growing fast — for example, digital economy, logistics and financial technology. On the other hand, the data technology itself — namely, machine-learning algorithms — have been developed and are still under fast development. I believe that, for students of business schools, it is important to be aware of the opportunities in the joint field of data science and business. With data science technology, the old business systems become more efficient and new business models rise. I think the training programmes of FBE in data science will broaden our students’ vision and future career development. |
‘My task is to bring students closer to real world data science, teach them the principles as well as practices’
Dr. Wataru MIYAMOTO | My research focuses on business cycle fluctuations. I have recently worked on two topics. The first topic is about the role of fiscal policy in counteracting economic downturns, Specifically, I estimated how government spending and tax changes can affect the macro-economy such as GDP, inflation and exchange rates. The second topic focuses on business cycle transmission across countries. In one of the projects, I study whether more international trade leads to large fluctuations in the economy. |
