Wing Thye Woo, Expert on Chinese and East Asian Economies, Joins Brookings

Wing Thye Woo, a professor in the Department of Economics at the University of California at Davis and advisor to a number of governments in East Asia, joined the Brookings Institution as a Senior Fellow, Brookings president Strobe Talbott announced today. Woo will be affiliated with the new Global Economy and Development program and the Brookings China Initiative.

At Brookings, Woo will focus on the East Asian economy, specifically China and Indonesia, as well as exchange rate economics, economic growth and the international financial system.

“We are delighted to welcome Wing, a distinguished scholar with deep experience in East Asia, to Brookings,” said Lael Brainard, vice president and director of Global Economy and Development at the Brookings Institution, and holder of the Bernard L. Schwartz Chair in International Economics. “Wing’s expertise on the East Asian economies will further inform our work on globalization, the emerging economies and international economics.”

Wing will continue to serve as a trusted advisor to many governments and agencies on the challenges and opportunities of globalization

Previously, Woo served as a special advisor to the U.S. Treasury from 1997-1998, and as the Special Advisor for East Asian Economies in the Millennium Project of the United Nations from 2002-2005. In July 2005, he was appointed to the International Advisory Panel to the Prime Minister of Malaysia. Woo is also the Director of the East Asia Program within the Center for Globalization and Sustainable Development at Columbia University.

Woo has led numerous international economics projects, including a study of the reform experiences of centrally-planned economies and the “Asia Competitiveness Report 1999,” which analyzed the Asian financial crisis for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in February 1999. In 2001, Woo helped establish the Asian Economic Panel. Additionally, Woo served as a member of the Consultant Team to China’s Ministry of Finance that helped design the tax and exchange rate reforms implemented in January 1994.

In 2004, the University of California at Davis awarded Woo its Distinguished Scholarly Public Service Award, and the Institute of Strategic and International Studies in Malaysia appointed him a Distinguished ISIS Fellow. In March 2006, he was appointed a Chang Jiang Scholar by the Ministry of Education of China at the Central University of Finance and Economics in Beijing.

Wing Thye Woo was born in Penang, Malaysia. He earned his undergraduate degree in Economics and Engineering from Swarthmore College with High Honors, a master’s in Economics from Yale, and master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Economics from Harvard.

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