Junsen Zhang

Prof. Zhang is currently a Distinguished University Professor in the School of Economics, Zhejiang University. Prof. Zhang is also Emeritus Professsor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong where he retired from Wei  Lun Professor of Economics in January 2021 after working there for 27 years. Before  returning to Hong Kong, he was Assistant Professor in the Department of  Economics, University of Western Ontario. He is a Fellow of the  Econometric Society. He received a B.Sc. in Engineering from Zhejiang  University in 1983, and an M.A. and Ph.D. both in  Economics from McMaster University in 1986 and 1990, respectively.

His research (both theoretical and empirical) has focused on the  economics of family behavior, including fertility, marriage, education,  intergenerational transfers, marital transfers, gender bias, and old-age  support. He also works on family-related macro  issues, such as ageing, social security, and economic growth. Using  many data sets from different countries (regions), either micro or  macro, he has studied economic issues in Canada, the US, the  Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong, as well as Mainland China. Most  of his recent research has been on the economics of the family using Chinese data.

He has published over 100 papers in major refereed international  journals. Many of them were published in leading economics journals such  as Journal of Political Economy, Review of Economic Studies,  AEJ：Policy，Economic Journal, Review of Economics and Statistics  and International Economic Review, or in leading field journals such as Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of  Development Economics, Journal of Human Resources, and Journal of  International Economics. According to a ranking by  RePEc dated May 2018, Junsen Zhang ranks as the number one economist in  the field of the Chinese economy.

He was Editor of the Journal of Population Economics from 2001 to 2020  and has been Co-Editor of Journal of Human Resources since February 2019.  He was the President of the Hong  Kong Economic Association from 2007 to 2011. In 2013, he was elected as  a Fellow of the Econometric Society. In 2017, Junsen Zhang and his  coauthor, Mark Rosenzweig, received the Sun Yefang Award Economic  Science Award, one of the highest honors in the field  of economics in China, for their article Do Population Control Policies  Induce More Human Capital Investment? Twins, Birth Weight and China's  'One-Child' Policy.