Prof. James Kung received his PhD in Economics from University of Cambridge in 1993. Before he joined HKUST, he taught in the Center in Political Economy and Department of Economics at Washington University in St. Louis, and in the Department of Business Studies at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is currently Yan Ai Foundation Professor of Social Science of the Division of Social Science at HKUST.

Prof. Kung’s research interests include estimating the economic impact of the West and its attendant globalizing forces (including the diffusion of Western religion) on late imperial China; the economics of conflicts in historical China (Sino-nomadic conflict, peasant rebellions and piracy); the relationship between culture and development using the “genetic distance” approach; the growth implications of technical change and population dynamics in Ming-Qing China (circa 1500-1900); human capital and social mobility in Qing China, and the political economy of contemporary China.

Between 1996 and 2010 Prof. Kung had received five competitive General Research Fund grants from the Research Grants Council, three of which as the sole investigator and one as Principal Investigator. He was also a recipient of the prestigious Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation research grant in 2009 and twice the recipient of the Best Teaching Award in the School of Humanities and Social Science at HKUST.