Edwin Lai was appointed as Professor of Economics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in July 2009, jointly appointed as Director of the Center for Economic Development in May 2017 and jointly appointed as Professor in the Division of Public Policy in February 2018. He was Senior Research Economist and Adviser at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas of the Federal Reserve System of the USA, from August 2007 to June 2009. Before that he was Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University, Associate Professor at City University of Hong Kong and Associate Professor at Singapore Management University. His main research areas are international economics, industrial organization, growth and internationalization of renminbi. He is a leading scholar in the study of intellectual property rights in the global economy. He has published in American Economic Review, RAND Journal of Economics, International Economic Review, Journal of International Economics and other respected journals in economics.
Prof. Lai has been a consultant to the World Bank, visiting scholar/fellow with Boston University, Princeton University, Kobe University, CESifo (University of Munich), Hitotsubashi University and Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research. He is Associate Editor of Review of International Economics (Wiley Publisher), a Fellow of the CESifo Research Network (U of Munich) and a board member of Asia-Pacific Trade Seminars (APTS) Group. He obtained his B.Sc. in engineering from University of Hong Kong and A.M. and Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University.
