Recently, the Royal Economic Society (RES) sent a letter of congratulations to Professor Yu Miaojie, President of Liaoning University (LNU), informing him of his election as a Fellow of the Royal Economic Society (RES Fellow) and the conferment of the lifetime postnominals FREcon. This marks the first time the RES has awarded this prestigious distinction to an economist from the Chinese mainland. It signifies that the comprehensive influence of Chinese economists has gained high recognition from the mainstream international economics community and represents another major breakthrough for Chinese economists on the world stage. For a long time, LNU, leveraging its national Double First-Class discipline of Applied Economics, has been committed to advancing the construction of an independent knowledge system for Chinese economics. As the first scholar form the Chinese mainland to be selected as a founding Fellow, and now standing alongside several Nobel laureates, Professor Yu’s achievement is a landmark event. It demonstrates that the theoretical innovations, empirical methods, policy insights, and disciplinary development experiences derived from China’s economic practice have successfully integrated with global economic academic discourse and secured a rightful position in the international academic evaluation system. This represents a significant milestone for China’s economics circle in its efforts to go global, participate in global academic governance, and enhance its international academic voice. It also provides strong evidence for the construction of an economic discipline system with Chinese characteristics, style, and spirit。
The Royal Economic Society (RES) was founded in 1890 as the British Economic Association and was granted a Royal Charter in 1902, officially becoming the Royal Economic Society (RES). As one of the world’s most venerable and influential economic associations, the Royal Economic Society (RES) has long been dedicated to advancing economic research, education, and public policy debate, earning a distinguished reputation across the global economics community. Throughout its history, the Society has numbered among its members and leaders some of the most eminent figures in the discipline. These include Lord John Maynard Keynes, a founding architect of modern macroeconomics; Alfred Marshall, a central figure in neoclassical economics; and Sir John Hicks, a Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences. Each of these giants of economic thought played a pivotal role in shaping the academic framework of the Society.
The Society’s flagship journal, The Economic Journal, founded in 1891, stands as one of the most important academic journals in modern economics. Its other publication, The Econometrics Journal, has also become a highly influential professional journal in the field of international econometrics. The title of Fellow of the Royal Economic Society (RES Fellow) is a significant academic honor conferred by the Society upon economists. It is awarded through a rigorous selection process to distinguished scholars who have made outstanding contributions to the discipline in areas such as original research, teaching and mentoring, service to the profession, policy practice, and the dissemination of economic knowledge. Currently, there are only 127 RES Fellows worldwide, representing some of the most influential scholars in global economics. Among them are Nobel laureates including Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, James A. Robinson, Philippe Aghion, Angus Deaton, and Oliver Hart, as well as internationally renowned economists such as Richard Blundell, Lord Nicholas Stern, and Silvana Tenreyro.
Professor Yu Miaojie’s election as the first economist from the Chinese mainland to become a Fellow of the Royal Economic Society (RES Fellow) and to receive the lifetime postnominals FREcon fully demonstrates the Society’s high recognition of his original research contributions, teaching excellence, service to the discipline, policy practice, and international influence. It further underscores his academic standing and professional reputation within the global economics community. Professor Yu Miaojie’s main research fields are international trade and China’s economic development. He has long been engaged in research areas such as firm heterogeneity, processing trade, global value chains, and trade policy, and has made outstanding contributions to promoting Chinese economic research into the mainstream research themes of international economics. To date, Professor Yu has published over 230 peer-reviewed papers in authoritative journals at home and abroad, among which more than 30 have appeared in top-tier and first-class journals including The Economic Journal, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of International Economics, Journal of Development Economics, as well as China’s Economic Research Journal and Management World. His papers have been cited more than 6,770 times in total, with an h-index of 33 and an i10-index of 72, demonstrating extensive international influence. Among these, his sole-authored representative paper Processing Trade, Tariff Reductions, and Firm Productivity was published in The Economic Journal, the flagship journal of the Royal Economic Society, and won the 2015 Royal Economic Society Prize. To date, this paper has been cited 1,281 times. The paper reveals the important impact of China’s independent opening-up policy on improving firm productivity and accelerating the formation of China’s new quality productive forces. It is also the only paper by a Chinese economist to have won this prize so far, and has been recognized as one of the three most influential papers on the Chinese economy published in The Economic Journal since its founding in 1891, fully reflecting the important value of China’s economic experience for the development of international economic theory and innovation in empirical research.
In addition to high-level academic research, Professor Yu Miaojie has long been actively serving the international economics community, China’s economic policy practice, and the training of high-level economics talents. In 2024, the Royal Economic Society invited Professor Yu Miaojie to serve as an Associate Editor of The Economic Journal, marking the first time the journal has invited an economist working in Asia to take up this important position. Professor Yu also serves as Associate Editor of Review of International Economics, Editor-in-Chief of China Development Journal, Honorary Editor-in-Chief of Intertrade (a journal affiliated with the Ministry of Commerce), Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Liaoning University, Editor-in-Chief of Japan Studies, and Executive Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Chang’an University. In terms of talent cultivation, Professor Yu has personally supervised over 100 doctoral and master’s students, and has long participated in the development of standards for university-level economics education in China. His Chinese textbook International Trade: Theory, Evidence and Policy has been recognized as a key national textbook under China’s “14th Five-Year Plan”. Recently, the edited volume China’s Open Economy, of which he is the editor-in-chief, has become one of the nine China Series, a key textbook development project in original Chinese philosophy and social sciences in economics. At the same time, Professor Yu has been invited to the United Nations Headquarters to present reports on China’s economic development, and has been appointed as an expert advisor to the United Nations, the Asian Development Bank, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Commerce, and many local governments. He is also a deputy of China’s National People’s Congress. He has played an active role in international academic exchanges, policy consulting, and the positive narrative and dissemination of China’s voice. This election as a Fellow of the Royal Economic Society (RES Fellow) is another major recognition for Professor Yu Miaojie from the international mainstream economics community, following his invitation to serve as Associate Editor of the Economic Journal, the world’s top economics journal under the Royal Economic Society, and his election as a Fellow of the International Economic Association (IEA Fellow). This honor is a strong affirmation by the Royal Economic Society of his long-term academic accumulation, original research contributions, international academic influence, and service to the discipline. It also fully demonstrates his outstanding achievements in the fields of international trade, China’s economic development, and firm heterogeneity. Professor Yu Miaojie’s election as a Fellow of the Royal Economic Society (RES Fellow) not only further confirms his academic standing and international influence, but also reflects the growing academic contributions and influence of Chinese economists in the international economics community. It is another landmark achievement of Liaoning University’s “Double First-Class” construction and the internationalization of its economics discipline.
Awardee Profile
Yu Miaojie, born in 1976, is a Fellow of the Royal Economic Society (RES Fellow), a Fellow of the International Economic Association (IEA Fellow), a Distinguished Professor of National Talent Program, and a recipient of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars. He currently serves as a Deputy to the 14th National People’s Congress, a Special Supervisor of the National Supervisory Commission, a member of the Standing Committee of the Liaoning Provincial People’s Congress, and the Deputy Secretary of the CPC LNU Committee and President of LNU. He is a globally top 1% most cited economist in economics and management, and is the only Chinese scholar to have won the Royal Economic Society Prize. He is also the sole Associate Editor from Asia for The Economic Journal, a top international economics journal founded in 1891. He was a member of the inaugural cohort of Young Scholars of the National Talent Program (2015), a Beijing Outstanding Young Scientist, a Peking University Boya Distinguished Professor, a Policy Advisory Committee Member of the Ministry of Commerce on Economic and Trade Affairs, a board member of the China-US Research Think Tank Alliance under the Ministry of Finance, an Honorary Professor of Irkutsk State University in Russia, a member of the International Advisory Board of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, and holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Davis (2005). He is Vice President of the China Society of World Economics, Vice President of the China Association of Quantitative Economics, Vice Chairman of the China Society of Industrial Economics, Vice Chairman of the Liaoning Federation of Social Sciences, and Vice President of the Liaoning Association of Discipline Inspection and Supervision. He enjoys the Special Government Allowance of the State Council.
