Woo Wing Thye

Woo Wing Thye (Chinese: 胡永泰) is an American economist. He is currently Vice President for Asia of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network; Distinguished Fellow of the Penang Institute in George Town, Malaysia; National Distinguished Fellow in the Thousand Talents Program of China; Changjiang Professor in China; and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Economics at University of California, Davis. He is also Director of the East Asia Program within the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and a member of the International Advisory Council at the Center for Social and Economic Research (CASE); and holds academic positions Fudan University in Shanghai, Henan University in Kaifeng, Xinjiang University of Finance and Economics in Urumuchi, Peking University in Beijing, and Sunway University in Kuala Lumpur.

Professor Woo is an expert on East Asian economies, particularly China, Malaysia and Indonesia. He has written extensively on the middle-income trap, as well as on transition economics, growth and development, globalization, exchange rate economics, and regional economic disparity.

He earned his PhD from Harvard University in 1982 with a thesis entitled 'Exchange rate determination under rational expectations: a structural approach'. The University of Cambodia awarded Professor Woo an Honorary Doctorate in Sustainable Development in 2020.