Lawrence Lau

Lawrence Lau
Born	Lawrence Lau Juen-yee (1944-12-12) December 12, 1944 Zunyi, Guizhou, Republic of China
Occupation(s)	Economist, academic
Years active	1966–present
Known for	Chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong; professor at Stanford University; member of Hong Kong Executive Council (2009–2012)

Lawrence Lau Juen-yee, GBS, JP (; born 12 December 1944), is a distinguished economist from Hong Kong and a former Chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). Between 2009 and 2012, he held the position of non-official member on Hong Kong's Executive Council. Prior to his tenure at CUHK, Lau was a professor specializing in economics at Stanford University.

Personal life

Lau was born in Zunyi, Guizhou, in the Republic of China. He is the grandson of Yu Youren, a renowned calligrapher and prominent Kuomintang figure. His early education took place at St. Paul's Co-educational College in Hong Kong. In 1964, he graduated from Stanford University with a B.S. degree in Physics and Economics, earning Great Distinction. He then pursued graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where he obtained an M.A. in 1966 and a Ph.D. in economics in 1969. Lau joined Stanford’s economics faculty in 1966 and was promoted to full professor by 1976.

Academic career

In 1992, Lau was named the inaugural Kwoh-Ting Li Professor of Economic Development at Stanford University. He served as co-director of Stanford’s Asia-Pacific Research Center from 1992 to 1996 and led the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research between 1997 and 1999. His academic focus includes Economic Development, Growth, and the economies of East Asia, with particular emphasis on China. Notably, he constructed one of the earliest econometric models for China in 1966 and has maintained its development ever since.

Lau holds fellowships with both the Econometric Society and Academia Sinica and is an Honorary Member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He has been granted honorary professorships at prestigious Chinese institutions such as Tsinghua University and Renmin University. Throughout his career, he has authored or edited five books alongside more than 160 scholarly articles.

He currently functions as an Honorary Research Fellow at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and serves as an International Adviser to China’s National Bureau of Statistics. Additionally, Lau is a board member of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange.

After returning to Hong Kong in 2004, Lau assumed the role of Vice-Chancellor at CUHK. He presently occupies the Ralph and Claire Landau Professorship in Economics at CUHK.

In 2015, Lau sparked controversy by proposing incarceration for students who forcibly entered a council meeting at the University of Hong Kong.

2019–20 Hong Kong protests

During the protests in Hong Kong from 2019 to 2020, Lau expressed criticism towards the demonstrations. He attributed the turmoil to profound and previously suppressed grievances among lower-income demographics, especially younger individuals. He also observed that this climate enabled both local and foreign agitators to exert influence.

Other activities

In January 2009, Chief Executive Donald Tsang appointed Lau as a non-official member of Hong Kong's Executive Council. To accept this appointment, Lau relinquished his U.S. citizenship. Later that year, he became part of the International Advisory Council for China Investment Corporation, China’s sovereign wealth fund.