Steven Ng-Sheong Cheung (/tʃʌŋ/ CHUNG;[citation needed] born December 1, 1935) is a Hong Kong-born American economist who specializes in the fields of transaction costs and property rights, following the approach of new institutional economics.
[1] He obtained his PhD in economics from UCLA, where his teachers were the American economists Armen Alchian and Jack Hirshleifer.
During this period, Cheung reformed the syllabus of Hong Kong's A-level Economics examination, adding the concepts of the postulate of constrained maximization, methodology, transaction cost and property right, most of which originate from the theories of the Chicago school.
From 1967 to 1969, he did postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago, analysing share tenancy and variable rural land resource allocation, and was hired as an assistant professor after impressing Milton Friedman in a debate.
"[4] Outside of the academic world, Steven Cheung is most well known for his numerous writings directed at a popular audience, especially the Chinese public.
Unbeknownst to the readers, the article was written under considerable emotional pain; his close friend, the table tennis champion Rong Guotuan, had just committed suicide after being tortured by the Red Guards.
Cheung maintained a lifelong friendship with former mentors Ronald Coase and Milton Friedman, the latter of whom officiated his wedding.
[5] In order to understand real life phenomena, he personally engaged in numerous economic activities, such as fish farming, selling citrus fruit, inspecting the petroleum industry, and haggling over the price of antiques.
Later on, after the leaders of Shanghai began economic reforms, he predicted that it would immediately become one of the financial centers of the world, surpassing Hong Kong.
[6] Experts have said that ignorance of the U.S. tax policy is common among U.S. expatriates; the U.S. government generally does not pursue investigations of failures to report overseas income for non-residents.
It is unknown why the U.S. government chose to investigate Cheung, and further to pursue a federal grand jury indictment; journalists have suspected ulterior motives.
[citation needed] In 2004, the Washington State Attorney General filed consumer fraud charges against Thesaurus Fine Arts.