UC Davis experts: Asian issues

The UC Davis faculty has a broad expertise across a variety of topics related to East Asia and China.

Economic and political relations

• U.S.-Asian policy, trade
• Trade, foreign investment and wages
• Pacific Rim trade
• Agricultural trade

Contemporary China

• Agricultural change in China
• Housing reform in China
• China’s social evolution

Prehistoric China

• Hunter-gatherers and culture transmission

ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL RELATIONS

U.S.-Asian policy, trade

Wing Thye Woo, a UC Davis professor of economics, is one of the world's leading experts on Asian economics. He concentrates on international and domestic macroeconomics, economic growth and comparative economic systems. Currently he is studying economic geography, fiscal decentralization, restructuring of state-owned enterprises and international capital flows. Woo has served as special adviser to former treasury secretary Robert Rubin, accompanying the secretary to a meeting with China's president in 1997. Contact: Wing Thye Woo, Economics, (530) 752-3035, wtwoo@ucdavis.edu.

Trade, foreign investment and wages

UC Davis economist Robert Feenstra has written extensively on the impacts of international trade and foreign investment, especially in Asia. Of special interest to him are the effects of trade and investments on wages earned by workers. In both the United States and abroad, the trend has been for the wages of higher-skilled workers to rise relative to those of less-skilled workers. This is a predictable response when companies in the United States "outsource" some of their activities, as has occurred especially with China Feenstra directs the Center for International Data at UC Davis, which distributes a large volume of international trade statistics over the Internet. He is also the director of the International Trade and Investment program at the National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, Mass.). Contact: Robert Feenstra, Economics, (530) 752-7022, rcfeenstra@ucdavis.edu.

Pacific Rim trade

Colin Carter, professor of agricultural and resource economics, is an expert on Pacific Rim trade and policy. Carter has most recently been investigating the implications of China's entry into the World Trade Organization and has been advising international organizations about the economic influence of China. Contact: Colin Carter, Agricultural and Resource Economics, (530) 752-6054, cacarter@ucdavis.edu.

Agricultural trade

Daniel Sumner is a professor of agricultural and resource economics at UC Davis and director of UC's Agricultural Issues Center. He publishes extensively on the consequences of farm and trade policy for agriculture and the economy, and he has served as deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and as the department's assistant secretary for economics. He can provide comment on what trade among the United States, California and rural China. Contact: Daniel Sumner, Agricultural and Resource Economics, (530) 752-1668, dasumner@ucdavis.edu.

CONTEMPORARY CHINA

Housing reform in China

Li Zhang, assistant professor of anthropology, researches the social and spatial consequences of China's urban housing reform as it changes from property of the state to privately held parcels. Her research has focused on Kunming, China, capital of the Yunnan Province. Her research on China and other countries in East Asia also looks at migration and urban anthropology; space, power, and Identity; tourism and consumerism; gender and modernity. Contact: Li Zhang, Anthropology, lizhang@ucdavis.edu.

China's social evolution

As China transitions from a communist economy toward capitalism, the country is undergoing vast social changes, especially in regards to the equality of women, says UC Davis sociologist Xiaoling Shu. She studies social demography, the sociology of gender, social stratification and the life course in China. Among her publications are research on job and wage inequality among men and women in China, and how Chinese boys and girls' aspirations for their future are diverging as the Chinese economy becomes more competitive. Contact: Xiaoling Shu, Sociology, (530) 752-2825, xshu@ucdavis.edu.

PREHISTORIC CHINA

Hunter-gatherers and culture transmission

Anthropologist Robert Bettinger studies prehistorical hunter-gatherers in China and the New World as well as human ecology of the North American Great Basin. He has helped develop a quantitative model to understand the global spread of Homo sapiens. His field work has concentrated on high-altitude adaptations in the White Mountains in eastern California and the late Pleistocene/early Holocene hunter-gatherer settlement and subsistence systems in north China. The Chinese research, funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society, seeks to understand when and why food production originally developed in one of the world's most important agricultural centers. Bettinger can also discuss culture transfer, using the archaeological record. He is author of "Hunter-Gatherers: Archaeological and Evolutionary Theory." Contact: Robert Bettinger, Anthropology, (530) 752-0551, rlbettinger@ucdavis.edu.

Media contacts:

• Claudia Morain, News Service, (530) 752-9841, cmmorain@ucdavis.edu
• Patricia Bailey, News Service (5300 752-9844, pjbailey@ucdavis.edu

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