Seven scholars received the 19th Sun Yefang Economic Science Award at a ceremony in Beijing on Jan. 9. The seven winners are: Cai Fang, Zhang Yuyan, Liu Shouying, Qian Yingyi, Chang-Tai Hsieh, Zhu Kunfu, and Huang Haizhou.

The Sun Yefang Economic Science Award, in memory of the eponymous Chinese economist, is one of the most prestigious awards in China’s economic field. The award targets papers and monographs published at home and abroad by economic theorists and practitioners from 1979 to 2019. The selection scope includes: research results that focus on major theoretical and practical issues in economics, are based on academic frontiers, have distinctive innovative characteristics, use normative analysis methods, and particularly research results that can effectively explain the great practice and unique experience of China’s reform, opening up, and modernization drive.

In the end, three books and four papers were selected.

The three books are: Cai Fang’s China’s Economic Growth Prospects: From Demographic Dividend to Reform Dividend, co-published by Edward Elgar Publishing and Social Sciences Academic Press (China) in 2016; Zhang Yuyan’s Economic Development and Institutional Choice, published by China Renmin University Press, first edition in 1992, republished in 2017; and Liu Shouying’s Land System Reform and Economic Development in China, published by China Renmin University Press in 2018.

The four selected papers are: “Government and the Rule of Law” by Qian Yingyi, published in Volume 5 of Comparative Studies in 2003; “Misallocation and Manufacturing TFP in China and India” by Chang-Tai Hsieh and Peter J. Klenow, published in The Quarterly Journal of Economics in November 2009; “Total Trade Accounting Method: Official Trade Statistics and Measurement of Global Value Chains” by Wang Zhi, Wei Shangjin, and Zhu Kunfu, published in Social Sciences in China, No. 9 in 2015; “The Capital Structure of Nations” by Patrick Bolton and Huang Haizhou, published in Review of Finance in February 2018.

Medals and certificates were presented to the winners by Gao Peiyong, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) and vice chairman of the Sun Yefang Foundation of China; Li Jiange, chairman of the Sun Yefang Foundation of China; Zhang Zhuoyuan, honorary chairman of the Sun Yefang Foundation of China; and Jiang Xiaojuan, director of the Sun Yefang Economic Science Award Committee.

Li Jiange said that the older generation of economists, such as Xue Muqiao and Sun Yefang, have made long-term and arduous efforts to explore economic theories in line with China’s national conditions, and have put forward many distinctively critical, reflective, pioneering, and forward-looking theoretical viewpoints.

Huang Qunhui, director of the Institute of Economics at CASS and council member of the Sun Yefang Foundation of China, said that the Sun Yefang Economic Science Award, as the highest honor recognized by the Chinese economic community, aims to inherit and carry forward the academic spirit of respecting the law and truth of the older generation of economists represented by Sun Yefang, their academic stance of serving and contributing to the country and the people, and their academic character of continuous exploration and innovation.