Shang-Jin Wei is N.T. Wang Professor of Chinese Business and Economy and Professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business and School of International and Public Affairs.

Dr. Wei is a noted scholar on international finance, trade, and the Chinese economy. He was a recipient of the 2019 Contemporary Economics Prize, the Sun Yefang Prize for Distinguished Contributions to Economics (for the invention of the Competitive Saving Motive published in Journal of Political Economy), the Zhang Peifang Prize for Contributions to the Economics of Development (for pioneering work on measurement of global value chains published in American Economic Review), the Pushan Prize for Excellence in Research on the World Economy, the Ann Tse Kai (An Zijian) Research Prize on International Trade, and the Gregory Chow Award for Best Research Paper.

During 2014-2016, Dr. Wei served as Chief Economist of Asian Development Bank and Director General of its Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department. He was ADB’s chief spokesperson on economic trends and economic development in Asia, advised ADB’s President on economic development issues, led the bank’s analytical support for regional cooperation fora including ASEAN+3 (China, Japan, and Korea) and APEC, growth strategy diagnostics for developing member countries, as well as research on macroeconomic, financial, labor market, and globalization issues.

Prior to his Columbia appointment in 2007, he was Assistant Director and Chief of Trade and Investment Division at the International Monetary Fund. He was the IMF’s Chief of Mission to Myanmar (Burma) in 2004. He previously held the positions of Associate Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, the New Century Chair in Trade and International Economics at the Brookings Institution, and Advisor at the World Bank.

Dr. Wei has been a consultant to numerous government organizations including the U.S. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, United Nations Economic Commission on Europe, and United Nations Development Program, the Asian Development Bank, and to private companies such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, UBS. He holds a PhD in economics and M.S. in finance from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Wei’s research has been published in top academic journals including American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of International Economics, and Journal of Development Economics, and reported in popular media including Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist, Business Week, Times, US News and World Report, Chicago Tribune, Nikkei Asian Review, South China Morning Post, and other international news media.

Amit Seru is The Steven and Roberta Denning Professor of Finance at Stanford Graduate School of Business, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). He was formerly a faculty member at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

Professor Seru’s research focuses on corporate finance with an emphasis on financial intermediation and regulation, technological innovation and incentive provision, and financing in firms. His research in these areas has been published in American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, and other peer-reviewed journals. He is a co-editor of the Journal of Finance and was previously an editor of Review of Corporate Finance Studies, department editor (Finance) of Management Science, and an associate editor of the Journal of Political Economy.

He has presented his research to U.S. and international regulatory agencies, including the Bank for International Settlement (BIS), Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB), European Central Bank (ECB), Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Most recently, he gave the Biennial Andrew Crockett lecture on regulation of banks in the era of fintechs to central bank governors around the world at the BIS. He has received various National Science Foundation grants, the Alexandre Lamfalussy research fellowship from BIS, and was named as one of the Top 25 Economists under 45 by the International Monetary Fund in 2014. His research has been featured in major media, including the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the Financial Times, and the Economist.

Seru earned a BE in electronics and communication and an MBA from the University of Delhi. Subsequently, he received a PhD in finance from the University of Michigan before. He was a senior consultant at Accenture before pursuing his PhD. Seru was the recipient of a Rackham Pre-Doctoral Fellowship at University of Michigan and received a Lt. Governor’s gold medal for overall academic excellence at the University of Delhi.