Justin Yifu Lin

Justin Yifu Lin, born in 1952, is a Chinese economist and professor at Peking University known for developing the framework of New Structural Economics, which argues that developing countries should pursue industrial policies suited to their actual comparative advantage rather than copying the industrial structure of wealthy countries. He served as chief economist and senior vice president of the World Bank from 2008 to 2012, the first person from a developing country to hold that position. As an army officer of the Republic of China stationed on the Kinmen Islands he swam to the mainland in 1979, later earning a doctorate at the University of Chicago under Theodore Schultz before returning to China to help found its economics research institutions.