Description

Pranab Bardhan, a Cambridge University PhD, has been at Berkeley since 1977, following teaching appointments at MIT and the Delhi School of Economics. He was the chief editor of the Journal of Development Economics for 1985-2003. He was the co-chair of the MacArthur Foundation-funded Network on the Effects of Inequality on Economic Performance for 1996-2007. He held the Distinguished Fulbright Siena Chair at the University of Siena, Italy in 2008-9. He is the BP Centennial Professor at London School of Economics for 2010 and 2011.He is the author of 12 books and more than 150 journal articles, and the editor of 12 other books. He has done theoretical and field studies research on rural institutions in poor countries, on political economy of development policies, and on international trade. A part of his work is in the interdisciplinary area of economics, political science, and social anthropology. His current research involves theoretical and empirical work on decentralized governance, and the political economy of development in China and India.

Margaret M. Pearson is Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research focuses on Chian’s domestic political economy and Chinese foreign economic policy. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale University and has taught at Dartmouth College, where she was promoted with tenure in 1994. Her publications include the books Joint Ventures in the People’s Republic of China (Princeton Press, 1991) and China’s New Business Elite: The Political Results of Economic Reform (University of California Press, 1997), as well as articles in World Politics, The China Journal, Public Administration Review, and The China Business Review. Recent articles have focused on PRC regulatory policy. Pearson’s ongoing research on China’s domestic economy includes state control of the economy, especially in monopoly industries, Chinese regulatory institutions, science and technology policy, and local officials’ defiance of central directives. On Chinese foreign policy, Pearson’s ongoing projects include determinants of Beijing’s behavior in global institutions. She teaches courses on Chinese domestic politics and foreign policy, and on comparative politics. She has held a Fulbright Research Fellowship at Beijing University.

Lynette H. Ong is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto, jointly appointed by the Department of Political Science and the Asian Institute, Munk School of Global Affairs. She was An Wang Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies in 2008-09. Lynette Ong’s theoretical interests are comparative politics, politics of development, political economy of finance and public finance. Her regional interests are primarily China, followed by East and Southeast Asia. She is fluent is Mandarin Chinese, Malay, Fujianese, Fuzhou and Cantonese. Her book, “Prosper or Perish: The Political Economy of Credit and Fiscal Systems in Rural China” will be published by Cornell University Press in 2012. Her publications have appeared in Comparative Politics, International Political Science Review, China Quarterly, Pacific Affairs, Asian Survey and the Journal of East Asian Studies. Her opinion pieces have also appeared in the Far Eastern Economic Review, China Economic Quarterly, East Asia Forum, and Asia Times Online. Lynette Ong received her PhD from the Australian National University and MA in Development Economics (Highest Distinction) from Sussex University.

Kanta Murali is an Assistant Professor in the Political Science department at the University of Toronto. Her research interests include Indian politics, comparative political economy of development, politics of growth and economy policy, state-business relations and labor policy.