Yew-Kwang Ng FASSA (Chinese: 黃有光; English pronunciation [jye kwɑŋ 'ʊŋ] or simply /kwæŋ/;[1] born 7 August 1942) is a Malaysian-Australian economist, who is currently Special Chair Professor of Economics at Fudan University, Shanghai, and a Distinguished Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.
[3] During his studies at Nanyang University, amid the unrest of demonstrations and strikes, Ng came close to being arrested or expelled several times.
[5] Since July 2019, Ng has held the position of Special Chair Professor at the School of Economics at Fudan University, Shanghai.
[15] Ng coined the term "mesoeconomics" and helped establish the field as a simplified, tractable general-equilibrium analysis with both micro and macro elements.
It has been argued that mesoeconomics "typically yields conclusions that are consistently more closely aligned with empirical evidence than any of the competing macroeconomic models.
[20] Thanks to his early work on animal welfare, global catastrophic risks and the measurement of wellbeing, he is credited with originating many ideas that would later be incorporated into the philosophy of effective altruism.
[2] In a 2020 paper, Ng analyses the implications of the economic theory of the second best for effective altruism, arguing that we live in a "third best" world where informational and administrative constraints prevent us from realising the second best outcomes.
[26][27] In 2020, Ng wrote a column which suggested that allowing polyandry could be a way for China to reduce problems arising from the male-skewed gender ratio in the country.