Yasheng Huang

Yasheng Huang

• MIT Professor of Global Economics & Management.
• Leading authority and speaker on the economies of India and China.
• Expert and speaker on international business, political economy, and international management.

Yasheng Huang is the International Program Professor in Chinese Economy and Business and a Professor of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is a highly regarded authority and international conference speaker on China’s and India’s economic growth.

Huang founded and runs the China Lab and the India Lab, which aim to help entrepreneurs in those countries improve their management skills. He is an expert source on international business, political economy, and international management. In collaboration with other scholars, Huang is conducting research on human capital formation in China and India, entrepreneurship, and ethnic and labor-intensive foreign direct investment. Prior to MIT Sloan, he held faculty positions at the University of Michigan and at Harvard Business School. Huang also served as a consultant to the World Bank.

Huang is an authority on how to get ahead in emerging economies.  His book ‘Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics’ chronicles three decades of economic reform in China and documents the critical role that private entrepreneurship played in the Communist nation’s “economic miracle.” Huang believes that China is moving away from Marxism (public ownership) but not Leninism (ideology of state control) and that strong social fundamentals are the key reason for its growth. He is a vocal critic of US foreign policy in China, calling on American leaders to rethink their messages, which often do not resonate with the Chinese public, and to use technology to broaden their reach, overcome stereotypes and quash conspiracy theories.

“For too long the US has not paid attention to an important force in the Chinese economy: the rise of indigenous entrepreneurs. This is in sharp contrast to the US approach in India.” Yasheng Huang

Huang has held or received prestigious fellowships, such as the National Fellowship at Stanford University and the Social Science Research Council-MacArthur Fellowship. He is a member of the Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, a Fellow at the Center for Chinese Economic Research and the Center for China in the World Economy at Tsinghua University, a Fellow at the William Davidson Institute at Michigan Business School, and a World Economic Forum Fellow.Huang holds a BA in government from Harvard College and a PhD in government from Harvard University.