Yang Dennis

Dennis Yang is the Dale S. Coenen Free Enterprise Professor of Business Administration and academic director of Darden’s Asia Initiative. He has taught First Year MBA and EMBA core classes and Second Year electives on emerging markets.

Yang's research focuses primarily on economic development and growth, as well as labor economics, especially in the context of China and economic transition. His work has covered a wide range of topics, including household behavior, education, savings, poverty and famine, long-term growth, China's population policies, wage structure and income distribution. He has published in leading economics journals, such as American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Economic Journal, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Journal of Monetary Economics, and Journal of Development Economics. He has also co-edited three books on economic reforms in China and served on the editorial boards of several international economics journals.

Yang has held other positions worldwide. He has served as a senior research fellow at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Peking University, Tsinghua University, and the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). He was also president of the Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vice-president of Hong Kong Economist Association and held the Chang Jiang Professorship at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. He has undertaken consulting work for international organizations such as the World Bank and The Conference Board, as well as other leading multinational companies.

A native of China, Yang obtained his undergraduate degree from UCLA and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. Before joining Darden in 2012, he served on the economics faculty at Duke University, Virginia Tech and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

Economic Development and Growth, Labor and Demographic Economics, Economics of China and Transition

Education

• Ph.D. Economics University of Chicago (1997 — 2002)
• B.A. University of California, Los Angeles (1985 — 1987)