Rate My Professor Guangrong Ma

Guangrong Ma is a Professor at the School of Finance, Renmin University of China. He joined the university as an Assistant Professor in 2013, was promoted to Associate Professor in 2016, and became Professor in 2019. He holds a PhD in Economics from Peking University, awarded in 2013, and a BA in Economics from Southeast University, awarded in 2008. He was a visiting PhD student at Duke University in 2011. His research interests include public economics and development economics. He has served as a Research Consultant at the World Bank Beijing Office since 2012.

Ma has published extensively in leading journals. Selected publications include “Hayek, Local Information, and Commanding Heights: Decentralizing State-Owned Enterprises in China” (with co-authors) in the American Economic Review in 2017; “Political Hierarchy and Regional Economic Development: Evidence from a Spatial Discontinuity in China” (with co-authors) in the Journal of Public Economics in 2021; “The Effects of Privatization on Firm Productivity in China” (with co-authors) forthcoming in the Journal of Law and Economics in 2025; and “Place-based Policies, State-Led Industrialisation, and Regional Development: Evidence from China’s Great Western Development Programme” (with co-authors) in the European Economic Review in 2020. Additional works cover topics such as local fiscal multipliers, fiscal decentralization, and real estate booms, appearing in journals including the Journal of Comparative Economics, Journal of Regional Science, and International Tax and Public Finance. His work contributes to understanding economic policy, privatization, and regional development in China.