Hongbin Li obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in 2001. From 2001 to 2006, he was an assistant professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he became associate professor (with tenure) in 2006 and professor in 2007. He is currently Professor of Economics in the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.

Professor Li’s research has been focused on China and is concerned with two general themes; a) the behaviors of governments, firms and banks in the context of economic transition; b) labor and demographic issues in the context of economic development. Most of his work is empirical in nature, in a number of cases using primary data sets that he has collected himself; in other cases tapping rich secondary data sets. These projects have been supported by Hong Kong Research Grant Council, the Ford Foundation and the Natural Science Foundation of China, and research results have been published in leading journals in the field such as Economic Journal, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Public Economics and Journal of Comparative Economics.

Hongbin Li joined IZA as a Research Fellow in April 2008.