Wing Thye is Distinguished Fellow at Penang Institute. He is also University Chair Professor at the China Economy Research Institute of Liaoning University; Vice-President for Asia at United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network; Distinguished Professor Emeritus at University of California Davis; Research Professor at Sunway University (which hosts the Asia Headquarters of SDSN); and Visiting Professor at Fudan University, University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and University of Malaya. His current research is on efficient, equitable pathways to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals with projects on Green Finance, Middle Income Trap, Decarbonization Pathways, Biodiversity Protection, Promoting Productivity Growth in SMEs, and Global Economic Architecture for a Multipolar World. He is an expert on the economies of China, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
Wing’s article “The Monetary Approach to Exchange Rate Determination under Rational Expectations: The Dollar-Deutschemark Case,” Journal of International Economics (JIE), February 1985, was identified by JIE in 2000 to be one of the twenty-five most cited articles in its 30 years of history, and his article “China Meets the Middle-Income Trap: The Large Potholes in the Road to Catching-Up,” Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies (JCEBS), November 2012, was awarded the Best Paper Prize at the 30th Anniversary Conference of the Chinese Economist Association (UK/Europe) in 2018. In early 1990s, he advised several centrally-planned economies on their transition strategies to market economy (Economies in Transition: Comparing Asia and Europe, MIT Press, 1997, with contributions from Leszek Balcerowicz, Boris Fedorov, Fan Gang and Jeffrey D. Sachs); and Indonesia on growth strategies and exchange rate management (Macroeconomic Crisis and Long-Term Growth: The Case of Indonesia,1965-1990, World Bank Press, 1994). He advised China’s Ministry of Finance on the comprehensive tax and exchange rate reforms implemented in January 1994 (Fiscal Management and Economic Reform in the People’s Republic of China, Oxford University Press, 1995), and the U.S. Treasury in 1997-98 on East Asian economies (The Asian Financial Crisis: Lessons for a Resilient Asia, MIT Press, 2000, which was featured at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, February 1999). From 2002-2005, Wing was the Special Advisor for East Asian Economies in the Millennium Development Goals Project of the United Nations; in July 2005, he was appointed to the International Advisory Panel to Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi of Malaysia; and in 2008, he was economic advisor to Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng of Penang State. He was a coordinator of the ADB Institute project, Financing Green Development, 2017-2019, and co-editor of the resulting Handbook of Green Finance: Energy Security and Sustainable Development, Tokyo: Springer, 2019.
Wing Woo has been the convener of the Asian Economic Panel (AEP) since 2001, a forum of about 80 specialists on Asian economies which meets tri-annually and publishes the Asian Economic Papers (ASEP), MIT Press (of which he is the Editor-in-Chief). In June 2023, Clavirate (World of Science) reported that its 2022 Journal Impact Factor was 9.7, ranking it #7 out of the 582 leading Economics Journals which it evaluated. Wing is also Editor of Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, and Associate Editor of Journal of Asian Economics. He was President of the Chinese Economists Association of North America (CEANA) in 2002; President of the Chinese Economists Society (CES) in 2016; and Executive Director of Penang Institute, 2012-2013. At Sunway University, he was Founding President of the Jeffrey Cheah Institute on Southeast Asia, 2014-2022; Founding Director of the Jeffrey Sachs Center on Sustainable Development, 2016-2022; and member of the Board of Directors, 2015-2022. University of California Davis awarded Wing its Distinguished Scholarly Public Service Award in 2004 and appointed him Distinguished Professor in 2019; the Ministry of Education of China appointed him Chang Jiang Professor in 2006; the Governor of Penang conferred on him the title Dato in 2009; and the Thousand Talents Program of China appointed him a National Distinguished Expert in 2016. In 2020, The University of Cambodia awarded him an Honorary Doctorate in Sustainable Development.
Wing was born in 1954 in George Town, Malaysia, and a member of the 2nd Georgetown (S) Senior Scout Troop at Methodist Boys’ School. He graduated from Swarthmore College in 1976 with a B.A. (High Honors) in Economics and a B.S. in Engineering; Yale in 1978 with an M.A. in Economics; and Harvard in 1982 with an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Economics.