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Cover of the Journal of the Economics of Aging

Korea’s labor force shift toward older, female, and more educated workers has been even more dramatic than that of the United States in recent decades. This paper documents how Korean job characteristics vary by age and characterizes the “age-friendliness” of Korean employment from 2000 to 2020 by applying the Age-Friendliness Index (AFI) developed by Acemoglu, Mühlbach, and Scott to Korean occupational data. The AFI measures job characteristics—such as physical demands and job autonomy—based on occupational descriptions and worker preferences. Our primary empirical findings are that the age-friendliness of Korean jobs grew more slowly than in the United States, and that older Koreans were not the main beneficiaries of these jobs. Both findings reflect the demographic, labor market, and institutional differences between Korea and the United States. The slow growth of AFI can be partially explained by labor market rigidities, the role of large firms in Korea, and the flattening of managerial structures.

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Karen Eggleston
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Noa Ronkin
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Mounting hidden local government debt is one of China’s pressing challenges. Held by local government financing vehicles (LGFVs) and estimated between US$8-10 trillion, this off-the-books debt originates from a long-running tug-of-war over tax revenue between China’s central government and the localities. In the years before COVID-19, LGFVs controlled their debt by drawing on steady non-tax revenues. In summer 2020, however, approximately six months after the pandemic broke out in Wuhan, the hidden debt held by LGFVs began rising dramatically. Today, many of them are nearing default, and local governments are increasingly going broke.

​​Why did hidden LGFV debt rise so much during COVID?

A recent study, published in The China Journal, sheds light on this question. The study’s co-authors – including Jean Oi, the William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and director of the China Program at APARC – use quantitative data to show how China’s central government’s regulatory crackdowns on income tied to the real estate sector during the pandemic disrupted the revenue sources LGFVs and their local governments relied on to service their debts. These policy changes “interacted with the zero-COVID policy to create a perfect storm, pushing hidden local government debt to new highs,” they write. 

Their study draws on a wide array of quantitative data, tracking information on factors ranging from COVID shocks (including confirmed cases and deaths) to, among others, government medical responses, special treasury bonds and their allocation, local debt, land purchases, and business activities. Using these sources, the co-authors built a province-level dataset covering all 31 of China’s provincial units from 2018 to 2022, allowing comparative analyses before and after China’s COVID shocks. They organized the data into three categories: (1) the impact of COVID on small and medium enterprises; (2) government fiscal responses and COVID expenditures during the pandemic; and (3) local government finances and debts.


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The grand bargain seemed like a win-win situation: the central government got more tax revenues as the economy grew, and localities used land finance to fill the fiscal gap and generate new growth. But this growth was fueled by debt.
Jean Oi et al

The Pre-COVID Era: The Grand Bargain That Failed


China’s local debt problem traces back to the 1994 fiscal reforms, which recentralized tax revenues in Beijing and left local governments with chronic budget shortfalls. To bridge the gap, the central government struck a “grand bargain”: while claiming a larger share of tax income, localities could generate new non-tax revenues through special-purpose vehicles, namely, local government financing vehicles. These LGFVs were set up as state-owned enterprises to incur and hold debt off-the-books, yet not illegally, on behalf of local governments.

The workaround fueled rapid development for years but laid the groundwork for today’s mounting hidden debt crisis.

“The success of LGFVs hinged largely on revenue generated through land finance,” explain Oi and her co-authors. “Local governments provided LGFVs with cheap land as collateral for bank loans and bonds. Further revenue was generated from preparing and selling land to real estate developers.”

Thus, LGFVs powered over a decade of rapid growth in China, driving infrastructure booms and urbanization that made the real estate sector a cornerstone of the economy. The model appeared mutually beneficial: the central government gained more tax revenue as the economy grew, while local governments used land sales and debt to fund development. But this growth depended on a continuous flow of non-tax income, making the system increasingly fragile.

After the 2008 global financial crisis, Beijing launched a sustained push to rein in local government hidden debt, focusing heavily on LGFVs. By 2017, officials labeled the risk a “gray rhino.” Yet this drive for fiscal discipline ground to a halt with the onset of COVID.

The call for LGFVs to buy land to create revenue for local governments made matters worse, turning land from a key source of revenue into a source of new debt.
Jean Oi et al

A Perfect Storm of Policy and Pandemic


The pandemic’s impact was swift and severe. Small and medium-sized businesses, especially in the hardest-hit regions like Hubei Province, saw their incomes collapse by up to 90%. In response, Beijing provided a massive fiscal support package to localities, including one trillion yuan in special COVID bonds to offset the costs from the initial onslaught of the pandemic. Crucial for LGFVs, these bonds cushioned the impact of the pandemic on land sales.

By summer 2020, however, as China was still locked away from the rest of the world and COVID was under control, Beijing resumed its policy agenda to enforce fiscal discipline and curb local government debt. The central government’s most consequential measure was the “three red lines” policy, which dealt a major blow to China’s real estate sector by sharply restricting developers’ ability to borrow once debt thresholds were crossed. The policy, expanded from 12 pilot firms in 2020 to cover the entire sector by 2021, disrupted the “borrow-to-grow” model and triggered a liquidity crisis. Evergrande, China’s second-biggest property developer, was among the first groups affected.

As borrowing dried up, firms struggled to repay debt, halted construction, and stopped buying land, slashing local government revenues. Land sales plummeted across provinces, with national revenue growth from land transfers plunging into negative territory by 2022. The crisis deepened when unfinished housing projects led to mortgage boycotts by frustrated home buyers, prompting more state intervention.

For local governments, the shift came at a steep cost. They were ordered to step in, using LGFVs to purchase land and inject cash into public budgets. As a result, even wealthier provinces like Shanghai and Guangdong saw sharp increases in LGFV debt.

“The call for LGFVs to buy land to create revenue for local governments made matters worse, turning land from a key source of revenue into a source of new debt and forcing LGFVs further to increase borrowing, all of which caused soaring increases in LGFV debt, without any alternative revenue source to service or pay that debt,” explain Oi and her co-authors.

It may be time for Chinese leadership to stop kicking the can down the road and undertake institutional reforms of the fiscal system.
Jean Oi et al

A Fiscal Reform Imperative


The study shows how China’s shifts in central government policies during the pandemic – especially the three red lines and the directive for LGFVs to buy up unwanted land — exacerbated long-standing vulnerabilities in local public finance. What had been a delicate balancing act quickly became unsustainable.

“At the root of China’s continuing crisis of LGFVs' debt is China’s flawed fiscal system,” the co-authors emphasize. Before the pandemic, the system masked deficits by relying on LGFVs to generate off-the-books revenues, primarily through land sales fueled by a booming real estate market. This arrangement allowed Beijing to capture the bulk of tax revenue while localities chased growth. But when COVID struck and the property sector collapsed, the facade crumbled.

The fallout exposed how deeply local governments had come to depend on land finance – an unstable, non-institutionalized revenue stream. With the real estate sector once accounting for over 20 percent of GDP, its collapse left localities and their financing vehicles adrift. “In the context of a crisis such as COVID, the weakness of the fiscal system and LGFVs was exposed as policy instability added to the volatility of the economic situation,” Oi and her co-authors note.

The local government debt problem might not trigger a financial crisis in China, “but LGFVs and their local governments remain in dire straits,” they write. More worrying, the economy has not rebounded in the post-COVID years as hoped, and “as long as the real estate sector remains depressed, land finance will not be able to make local government budgets whole as it once did. The grand bargain can’t work.”

Rather than assume the debt, Beijing is extending lifelines: urging banks to offer LGFVs 25-year loans with temporary interest relief, approving debt swaps into longer maturity municipal bonds, and allowing new issuances of special-purpose bonds. But these are stopgaps, not solutions.

Hidden debt will keep resurfacing unless China overhauls the fiscal system born out of the 1994 reforms, Oi and her co-authors conclude. Institutionalized, dependable, alternative revenue streams for local governments are needed, or the crisis will persist. “It may be time for Chinese leadership to stop kicking the can down the road and undertake institutional reforms of the fiscal system. This may be painful, but there is no other sustainable solution.”

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Bargaining Behind Closed Doors: Why China’s Local Government Debt Is Not a Local Problem

New research in 'The China Journal' by APARC’s Jean Oi and colleagues suggests that the roots of China’s massive local government debt problem lie in secretive financing institutions offered as quid pro quo to localities to sustain their incentive for local state-led growth after 1994
Bargaining Behind Closed Doors: Why China’s Local Government Debt Is Not a Local Problem
Oksenberg Symposium panelists (L to R) Jean C Oi, Alex Gabuev, Sumit Ganguly, Da Wei, Michael McFaul
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Oksenberg Symposium Panelists Analyze Evolving Strategic Dynamics Between China, Russia, India, and the United States

APARC's 2025 Oksenberg Symposium explored how shifting political, economic, and social conditions in China, Russia, India, and the United States are reshaping their strategies and relationships. The discussion highlighted key issues such as military and economic disparities, the shifting balance of power, and the implications of these changes for global stability, especially in the Indo-Pacific region.
Oksenberg Symposium Panelists Analyze Evolving Strategic Dynamics Between China, Russia, India, and the United States
Shilin Jia
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Tracking Elite Political Networks: Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow Shilin Jia’s Data-Driven Approach to Understanding Chinese Bureaucracy

APARC’s 2024-25 Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow on Contemporary Asia Shilin Jia researches the careers of high-level Chinese political elites during the economic reform period from 1978 to 2011. Using a quantitative approach, Jia explores how China's party-state orchestrated elite circulation as a governance tool during a time of significant economic and political transformation.
Tracking Elite Political Networks: Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow Shilin Jia’s Data-Driven Approach to Understanding Chinese Bureaucracy
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A man walks past a bear-like sculpture at Evergrande City Plaza shopping center on September 22, 2021 in Beijing, China.
A man walks past a bear-like sculpture at Evergrande City Plaza shopping center on September 22, 2021, in Beijing, China. | Andrea Verdelli/ Getty Images
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A co-authored study by a team including Stanford political scientist Jean Oi traces how the Chinese central government’s shifting policies during the COVID pandemic exposed its fiscal fault lines and created a local government liquidity crisis.

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Cover of volume 93 of The China Journal

After the abrupt end of China’s zero-COVID policy at the end of 2022, the debt held by local government financing vehicles (LGFVs) on behalf of their local governments had soared to at least US$8 trillion. Some local governments are now cutting public services due to a lack of funds. The mountains of LGFV debt cannot be explained by COVID public health expenditures, but the impact of COVID determined policy changes that led to the crisis of hidden debt. Paradoxically, China’s success in combatting the first wave of COVID triggered policies that ultimately upended LGFVs. Using quantitative data, we show that changing central government policies during the pandemic created debt and undermined the operation of LGFVs. The three red lines policy instituted against the real estate sector in the middle of the pandemic interacted with the zero-COVID policy to create a perfect storm, pushing hidden local government debt to new highs when the revenue that LGFVs needed to service their debt dried up. COVID exposed the inherent vulnerability of LGFVs and their local governments relying on a noninstitutionalized source of revenue—namely, income tied to the real estate sector—to fill their annual fiscal gaps and underscored the need for systemic fiscal reform.

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Flyer for the conference "Taiwan Forward." Image: aerial view of Taipei.

We have reached capacity for this event and registration has closed.


Organized by the Taiwan Program at Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC)
Co-sponsored by National Taiwan University's Office of International Affairs

As Taiwan looks to develop comprehensive strategies to promote national interests, it faces challenges shared by other advanced economies. How can Taiwan leverage AI innovation and its semiconductor prowess to drive resilience and continued growth while promoting entrepreneurship and forging advantages in emerging industries? What regulatory and policy measures are needed to scale Taiwan’s role as a global leader in biomedical and healthcare advancements while ensuring patient trust and safety? How can it address the gaps posed by rapid family changes and population aging? And how do its historical and linguistic legacies shape present narratives and identities, within Taiwan and among the Taiwanese diaspora?

Join us for a conference that explores these questions and more, featuring panel discussions with scholars from Stanford University, National Taiwan University, and other universities in Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Singapore, alongside Taiwanese industry leaders. We will examine Taiwan’s strategies for navigating modernization in a shifting global landscape — bridging technology, industry, culture, and society through interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives.

 

8:45 - 9:10 a.m.
Opening Session

Welcome Remarks

Shih-Torng Ding
Executive Vice President, National Taiwan University

Gi-Wook Shin
Director, Shorenstein APARC and the Taiwan Program, Stanford University

Congratulatory Remarks

Chia-Lung Lin
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Taiwan

Raymond Greene
Director, American Institute in Taiwan 


9:10-10:40 a.m.
Panel 1 — Advancing Health and Healthcare: Technology and Policy Perspectives     
    
Panelists 

Kuan-Ming Chen
Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, National Taiwan University

Lynia Huang
Founder and CEO, Bamboo Technology Ltd.

Ming-Jen Lin
Distinguished Professor, Department of Economics, National Taiwan University

Siyan Yi
Associate Professor, School of Public Health, National University of Singapore

Moderator
Karen Eggleston
Director, Asia Health Policy Program, Shorenstein APARC, Stanford University


10:40-10:50 a.m.
Coffee and Tea Break


10:50 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Panel 2 — Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Technology Leadership

Panelists 

Steve Chen
Co-founder, YouTube and Taiwan Gold Card Holder #1

Matthew Liu
Co-founder, Origin Protocol

Huey-Jen Jenny Su
Professor, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health and Former President, National Cheng Kung University

Yaoting Wang
Founding Partner, Darwin Ventures, Taiwan

Moderator
H.-S. Philip Wong
Willard R. and Inez Kerr Bell Professor in the School of Engineering, Stanford University


12:30-1 p.m.

Perspectives from Stanford and NTU Students

Tiffany Chang
BS Student in Engineering Management & Human-Centered Design, Stanford University

Liang-Yu Ko
MA Student in Sociology, National Taiwan University


1-2 p.m. 
Lunch Break


2-3:30 p.m.  
Panel 3 — Interwoven Identities: Exploring Chinese Languages, Taiwanese-american Narratives, and Japanese Colonial Legacies in Taiwan

Panelists 

Carissa Cheng
BA Student in International Relations, Stanford University

Yi-Ting Chung
PhD Candidate in History, Stanford University

Jeffrey Weng
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, National Taiwan University

Moderator
Ruo-Fan Liu
Taiwan Program Postdoctoral Fellow, Shorenstein APARC, Stanford University


3:30-3:45 p.m. 
Coffee and Tea Break


3:45-5:15 p.m.    
Panel 4 —  The Demographic Transformation: Lessons from Taiwan and Comparative Cases

Panelists

Yen-Hsin Alice Cheng
Professor, Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica

Youngtae Cho
Professor of Demography and Director, Population Policy Research Center, Seoul National University

Setsuya Fukuda
Senior Researcher, National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, Japan

Moderator
Paul Y. Chang
Tong Yang, Korea Foundation, and Korea Stanford Alumni Association Senior Fellow, Shorenstein APARC, Stanford University


5:15-5:30 p.m.    
Closing Remarks

Gi-Wook Shin
Director, Shorenstein APARC and the Taiwan Program, Stanford University

THIS CONFERENCE IS HELD IN TAIPEI, TAIWAN, ON SUNDAY, MARCH 23, 2025, FROM 8:45 AM TO 5:30 PM, TAIPEI TIME

International Conference Hall, Tsai Lecture Hall
College of Law
National Taiwan University

No.1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt Road
Taipei City, 10617
Taiwan

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Cover of the book "The Four Talent Giants"

The Asia-Pacific region has seen extraordinary economic achievements. Japan's post-World War II transformation into an economic powerhouse challenging US dominance by the late 1980s was miraculous. China's rise as the world's second-largest economy is one of the 21st century's most stunning stories. India, now a top-five economy by GDP, is rapidly ascending. Despite its small population, Australia ranked among the top ten GDP nations in 1960 and has remained resilient. While cultivating, attracting, and leveraging talent has been crucial to growth in these countries, their approaches have varied widely, reflecting significant cultural, historical, and institutional differences.

In this sweeping analysis of talent development strategies, Gi-Wook Shin investigates how these four "talent giants'' achieved economic power and sustained momentum by responding to risks and challenges such as demographic crises, brain drain, and geopolitical tensions. This book offers invaluable insights for policymakers and is essential for scholars, students, and readers interested in understanding the dynamics of talent and economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.

See also:

Sociologist Gi-Wook Shin Illuminates How Strategic Human Resource Development Helped Build Asia-Pacific Economic Giants
APARC website,  June 26, 2025

In the Media

Stanford Scholar Reveals How Talent Development Strategies Shape National Futures
The Korean Daily, July 13, 2025 (interview)
- English version
- Korean version


 

Reviews of The Four Talent Giants

 

Review by Barry Eichengreen, University of California, Berkeley 
Published in Foreign Affairs, December 16, 2025

"Scholars have offered multiple hypotheses, mostly emphasizing culture, history, and institutions, to explain the economic rise of countries in Asia. Shin focuses on human capital, analyzing the different ways Asian economies have developed their workforces. The four countries whose economies he focuses on—Australia, China, India, and Japan—have taken distinctive approaches to acquiring what he calls “talent portfolios.” Japan nurtured homegrown talent, while Australia attracted skilled immigrants. China sent students abroad, while India relied on its foreign diaspora and its advanced institutes of technology to train workers and impart needed skills. Although the approaches differ, each country successfully developed scientific, technical, and managerial talent in the quest for economic growth. Shin’s focus on talent competition is especially timely given the rapid increase in the number of students in China studying STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering, and math—and political attacks on higher education in the United States. Together, these trends raise questions about the ability of the United States to keep pace with China."

Review By Steven A. Mejia, Washington State University
Published in Social Forces, August 23, 2025

"The determinants of nation-state development is one of the most central questions in the comparative international social sciences. In The Four Talent Giants: National Strategies for Human Resource Development Across Japan, Australia, China, and India, Gi-Wook Shin joins these longstanding conversations in an ambitious work that may become a classic study. [...]

"There is much to praise about The Four Talent Giants. It makes sound theoretical inferences from analysis of expansive historical and quantitative data on major successes in the modern world economy, helping advance scientific understanding of the factors shaping development. These scholarly insights will also be crucial for policy makers at national, regional, and international levels. For example, countries seeking to foster their own development may invest in the forms of human and social capital emphasized in The Four Talent Giants. [...]

"Overall, The Four Talent Giants provides a groundbreaking theoretical innovation to help explain key empirical problems central to decades of comparative international social scientific work. This may in turn shape development policy that can then improve the quality of life for millions around the world. The Four Talent Giants will move comparative international social scientific conversations on development in important new directions."

Read the complete review via Social Forces.

Review by Anthony P. D'Costa, University of Melbourne
Published in The Developing Economies, November 2025

"Gi-Wook Shin has written an excellent book on talent development strategies [...] Shin's book is noteworthy for three key reasons: First, he has developed a novel framework to analyze the development and the international movement of talent and their mobilization by governments for national economic and technological development. Second, he covers an important region of the world that has significant players in talent portfolios and offers wide-ranging experiences for talent strategy. And third, it is a timely publication when anti-immigrant sentiments are running high. He has skillfully marshaled a wealth of data, including field interviews in these countries, to produce a coherent narrative of global talent [...]

"Gi-Wook Shin's skillfully argued book will inspire students and scholars to rethink talent migration, education inequality, and the future of Asian economic development."

Read the complete review via The Developing Economies.



Advance praise for The Four Talent Giants:

"The Four Talent Giants is a wonderful book, full of new ideas and, especially, comparative empirical research. Gi-Wook Shin's ambitious treatment of the topic of human capital, or 'talent,' in the context of a globalized economy is very important and reading it will be a rewarding exercise for scholars, politicians, corporate leaders, and many others."
—Nirvikar Singh, University of California, Santa Cruz

"The current scholarly literature offers multiple country-specific talent formation studies, including those on the transformative role of skilled migration. However, few authors have dared to attempt a thorough cross-national analysis, comparing the nature and impact of policies across highly variable geopolitical contexts. The Four Talent Giants achieves this goal triumphantly, and accessibly, assessing the global implications of national experimentation for effective talent portfolio management."
—Lesleyanne Hawthorne, University of Melbourne
 

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National Strategies for Human Resource Development Across Japan, Australia, China, and India

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Visiting Scholar at APARC, 2025
ra_sungsup.jpg Ph.D.

Sungsup Ra joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as visiting scholar for the 2025 calendar year. He is currently a Visiting Professor at the Korea Development Institute School of Public Policy and Management (KDI School) and also serves as an Advisor to the International Financing Facility for Education (IFFEd), an Advisory Board Member at the International Centre for Industrial Transformation (INCIT), and an Industry Fellow at the NTU Entrepreneurship Academy (NTUpreneur).

Before joining KDI School in April 2024, Sungsup was the Deputy Director General and Deputy Group Chief of the Sectors Group at the Asian Development Bank (ADB). In this role, he led ADB-wide strategies, knowledge innovation, and sovereign operations across multiple sectors including agriculture, education, energy, health, finance, transport, urban development, and water. He oversaw key ADB initiatives such as climate financing, energy transition, addressing the learning crisis, food security, the rollout of the new operating model, and the management of 29 trust funds.

With over 35 years of professional experience, including 23 years at ADB, Sungsup held leadership positions such as Chief Sector Officer for Sustainable Development and Climate Change, Director of the South Asia Human and Social Development Division, and Director of the Pacific Operations Division. He also chaired the Education Sector Group, driving strategic education initiatives across Asia and the Pacific.

Prior to ADB, Sungsup worked in both the public and private sectors, including roles at Samsung and the Korean National Pension. He has also taught at leading universities such as International Christian University in Tokyo, Korea University, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He holds a Doctorate in Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 

While at APARC, he conducted research on the future of skills development in Asia.

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Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow on Contemporary Asia, 2024-2025
yingqiu_kuang.jpg Ph.D.

Yingqiu Kuang joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as 2024-2025 Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow on Contemporary Asia beginning January 2025. She is a political scientist specializing in the comparative and international political economy of China and East Asia. Her research interests lie at the intersection of technology, law, and global governance. Her book project, “A Mosaic of Mundane Innovations: Emerging Powers, Multinational Firms, and Global 5G Technology Rules,” examines the emergence of latecomer economies like China and South Korea as key agents in the global technology governance regime. Using a mixed research method and an original, novel dataset, the project aims to explain why East Asian firms appear more effective in 5G rule-making on transnational platforms than traditional technology giants, and how the diverse behavior of these firms are reshaping global institutions.

At APARC, Yingqiu worked on expanding and revising her book manuscript. She also continued to pursue her wider scholarly agenda, which concerns the economic engagements between China, East Asia, and the world. She was particularly interested in how technological unpredictability is changing the landscape of economic governance in the region and the world.

Yingqiu completed her PhD in Political Science at the University of British Columbia. She also holds a master’s degree in political science from UBC. She developed her interest in political science and international relations in East Asia while an undergraduate student at Peking University and Waseda University in China and Japan. As a policy and technology specialist, she has also worked with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, the National Energy Board of Canada and others on trade, investment, and clean energy issues.

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Visiting Scholar at APARC, 2024-2026
WIRJAWAN Yasmin.jpg EdD
Yasmin Wirjawan joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as a visiting scholar from 2024 to 2026. Her research focuses on economic participation and climate change resilience among women and youth in Southeast Asia. She has over 20 years of experience serving on corporate and nonprofit boards across diverse industries. She also serves as Independent Commissioner of TBS Energi Utama, Advisor to Ancora Group and Sweef Capital, and leads the Ancora Foundation. 
 
Wirjawan holds a Doctor of Education in Leadership and Innovation and a Master of Science in Management and Systems from New York University. She also earned a Master of Science in Finance from Brandeis University.
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Visiting Scholar at APARC, 2024-2026
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Matthew Dolbow joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as visiting scholar from 2024 to 2026 from the U.S. Department of State.  Before coming to APARC, Mr. Dolbow strengthened U.S. military deterrence capabilities in Asia as the U.S. Consul General in Okinawa, Japan.  As Chief of Staff in the U.S. National Security Council’s international economics office during the first Trump administration, Mr. Dolbow helped compile the 2017 U.S. National Security Strategy, which declared for the first time that "economic security is national security," and thus helped to establish a new bipartisan U.S. consensus on innovative trade, investment screening, and energy policies that increased U.S. competitiveness and secured the U.S. defense industrial base. As head of economic strategy at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing from 2013 to 2016, Mr. Dolbow created a Department of State-wide training program that taught colleagues to track and assess China's Belt and Road Initiative projects.  While at APARC, he will be conducting research on competition with China related to technology, innovation, human capital, and national security.

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Visiting Scholar at APARC, 2024-2025
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You Jung Lee joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as visiting scholar for the 2024-2025 academic year. She is a journalist for the Korea Economic Daily, having spent over 10 years covering areas including international affairs and, most recently, construction and the real estate market. While at APARC, she conducted research examining Korea's housing and real estate market, its policies and financial structure, and comparing Korea's system to that of the U.S.

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