Justin Yifu Lin

Justin Yifu Lin (Chinese林毅夫, Pinyin Lín Yifu, * October 15, 1952 in Yilan, Taiwan ) is a Chinese economist. He is Chief Economist and Vice President of the World Bank. He taught 15 years at the economic research institute he founded "China Centre for Economic Research" ( CCER ) at Peking University before he became the successor of François Bourguignon Chief Economist of the World Bank on February 5, 2008. He is an expert in development policy.

Life

Justin Yifu Lin was born as Zhengyi Lin in Taiwan. He studied agricultural science at National Chengchi University in Taiwan. However, the studies he broke off, to enter the military service. In 1972, he fled his home country to China by swimming from a Taiwanese military base on the island of Kinmen by the sea to the nearby Chinese island of Xiamen. In Beijing, he studied Marxist economics. There he met the American Nobel laureate and economist Theodore W. Schultz know which enabled him to obtain a PhD at the University of Chicago. 1986 Lin earned his Ph.D. in economics. A year later he went back to his adopted homeland of China, where he founded the "China Centre for Economic Research". At the same time, he held a professorship at the University of Hong Kong. From 1993 on, he was an economic advisor at the World Bank. In 2007, he held the " Marshall Lectures" at the University of Cambridge, UK. Justin Yifu Lin is married and has two children.

Research

In his dissertation and further research he analyzed the economic reforms of China's opening policy in rural areas. He analyzed, inter alia, the incentive structure of the system after households have control over a part of the production itself (Household Responsibility System). Also in the 1990s, remained the focus of his research on the transformation of China's economy, he examined, among other things the institutional contexts of state-owned enterprises, adaptation to technical progress and the impact of China's WTO membership.

Politics

Justin Yifu Lin sees himself as a frontier of Marxism and capitalism. He advocates a policy direction that combines planned and market economy. In his book On China 's Economy. The Chinese road to economic power, he describes the tremendous economic rise of China in recent 30 years. There it is said of him that China's rise will continue two or three decades, is a realistic prognosis. But Lin also says: " The central social problem of the People's Republic of China in the 21st century is its distribution problem." In an interview with TIME online on 12 March 2009 he expressed as: "China's growth has been impressive in recent years, but at the same time the gap between rich and poor and urban and rural areas has increased. "