Chu, Wan-wen 1952–

views updated

Chu, Wan-wen 1952–

PERSONAL:

Born September 21, 1952, in Taipei, Taiwan; daughter of Mien-chih Chu (a civil servant) and Wen-hwa Huang (a housewife); married Hongseng Tseng (a writer), September 19, 1980. Ethnicity: "Chinese." Education: National Taiwan Univeristy, B.A., 1974; Stanford University, M.A., 1978, Ph.D., 1982.

ADDRESSES:

Home— Taipei, Taiwan. Office— Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, Academia Sinica, Nankang, Taipei, Taiwan 11529. E-mail— [email protected].

CAREER:

University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, instructor, 1981-83, assistant professor, 1983-87; University of California—Los Angeles, visiting assistant professor, 1987-88; Academia Sinica, Sun Yat-Sen Institute for Social Sciences and Philosophy, Nankang, Taipei, Taiwan, associate research fellow, 1988-91, research fellow, 1991-2004, deputy director, 1999-2003, Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, research fellow, 2004—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Ford Foundation International Economics Fellowship, 1978-79.

WRITINGS:

(With A. Amsden)Beyond Late Development: Taiwan's Upgrading Policies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press (Cambridge, MA), 2003.

Contributor to books, including The Economics and Political Economy of Development in Taiwan into the 21st Century, edited by B. Ranis, S.C. Hu, and Y.P. Chu, Edward Elgar (Cheltenham, England), 1999;Global Production and Trade in East Asia, edited by L. Cheng and H. Kiezkowski, Kluwer Academic Press (New York, NY), 2001;Development Economics and Structuralist Macroeconomics: Essays in Honor of Lance Taylor, edited by A.K. Dutt and J. Ros, Edward Elgar (Cheltenham, England), 2003;The Chinese Model of Modern Development, edited by T.-Y. Cao, Routledge (New York, NY), 2005;Handbook on the Northeast and Southeast Asian Economies, edited by A. Chowdhury and I. Islam, Edward Elgar (Cheltenham, England), 2007.

Contributor to numerous periodicals, including Taiwan: A Radical Quarterly in Social Studies, Cambridge Journal of Economics, Journal of Industry Study, World Development, Taiwan Economic Review, Southern Economic Journal, and Journal of Social Sciences and Philosophy. Editor,Taiwan: A Radical Quarterly in Social Studies. Editorial board member,Journal of World Business,1996-98,Industry and Innovation,1997—, and Journal of Asia Pacific Economy,2003—.

SIDELIGHTS:

Wan-wen Chu, who has a doctoral degree in economics from Stanford University, wrote the book Beyond Late Development: Taiwan's Upgrading Policies, with Alice H. Amsden. Chu and Amsden's work analyzes the economical development of Taiwan.

Amsden and Chu look at the success of the Taiwanese economy and the reasons behind its success. The authors discuss how high-tech industries have recently been a driving force in Taiwan's economy and how technology is helping to upgrade industry in that country. The pair also discusses the role, as they see it, of the government in moving Taiwan's economy forward.

Although Chu and Amsden focus on the economy of Taiwan, they use the Taiwanese economy as an optimistic model for other small or developing countries. That Taiwan is a successful late-developing country can give hope to struggling economies around the globe. According to ASEAN Economic Bulletin contributor Kim Ong-Giger, however, the pair does 'carefully [consider] the extent to which the latecomer model can be generalized." Ong-Giger went on to say that the book "is a useful contribution to the understanding of the strategies employed by firms as well as the policies adopted by the government of a latercomer country," but that the authors "overlooked the fact that Taiwan's economic development is also a product of its political history." Writing for the Journal of East Asian Studies, Stephan Haggard remarked, "At one level, the book can be read as a critique of the received wisdom that Taiwan succeeded through the dynamism of relatively small firms…. At a deeper level, the book is about this process of realizing such economies of scale and thus goes far beyond the Taiwan case."

Chu's body of work consists almost entirely of the study of economics and industry in Taiwan. Before publishing Beyond Late Development, Chu published many other works about the Taiwanese economy. Chu had a number of books published in Chinese that dealt with economics and, in particular, industry's impact on the economy. Chu has also published works in a number of periodicals and contributed chapters to books. These publications mainly focus on how industrial policy affects the economy in Taiwan.

In addition to authoring original works, Wan-wen Chu has worked on the editorial boards of several periodicals dealing with the economy, business, and social studies. Chu told CA that her main research interests are "economic development, industrial policy, [and] industrial organization." Chu continues to research and write about the economy and has begun studying China's industrial policy in the postreform era.