Yard No. 9, Xihuangchenggen, Beijing, is an inconspicuous place. Dozens of bungalows ranging from old to new are scattered irregularly in the courtyard, forming several courtyard communities. The largest community in the courtyard houses the tallest building in the entire courtyard - a three-story small gray building. On the second floor of Xiaohui Building, the dark corridor is lined with offices door to door. The electrical room in one of them is where Lin Yifu works in the Rural Affairs Department of the Development Center of the State Council.
On the day of my first visit to Lin Yifu last year, it was the first heavy snowfall since the winter in Beijing. The road was extremely difficult to walk and the weather was bone-chillingly cold. I inquired all the way and found his office. I entered the door and was about to take off my coat when I heard him say, "You don't have to take it off. It's very cold here." I looked up and saw that this man was a tall man. The man who was about 3 meters tall had his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, his eyes were bright, and he smiled very humorously and easy-going. He was a little surprised in his heart and thought: This Taiwanese is really different from the many other people I have seen before. Pretty much the same.
I heard about Lin Yifu’s name in August of this year. The annual Sun Yefang Economics Award, the highest award in the domestic economics community, was announced, and the jury held a small press conference at the Beijing Hotel. From the conference host, Professor Zhang Zhuoyuan, I learned that this year’s Sun Yefang Book Award winner is named Lin Yifu, 41 years old, who came back from Taiwan 14 years ago, and returned from the United States 6 years ago with a PhD in economics. Professor Wu Jinglian was also the winner of this year's Sun Yefang Award. He gave a brief speech at the press conference. He didn't mention his book "The Road to Market Economy" very much, but he excitedly mentioned the young and middle-aged people who won the award. Among them I mentioned with appreciation Lin Yifu, who uses modern theoretical tools to conduct economic research, and his book "Institutions, Technology and China's Agricultural Development". At that time, I heard Professor Wu's praise and looked at Lin Yifu's somewhat unique experience, and my heart moved...
This interview has a topic. It was agreed in advance that Lin Yifu would be asked to talk about it. Views on the Decision of the Third Plenary Session of the 14th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. In order to keep the conversation natural and out of professional curiosity, of course I asked Yifu some "off-topic" questions. I asked him, Taiwan and the United States have very good conditions for academic research, so why should he return to the mainland?
He said that since the mainland is so big, it is interesting to study the economy here. He also said that Western economics is based on a perfect market economy and has a weak theory of reform and development. However, in China, there is an opportunity to study this issue clearly and contribute to the development of mainstream economics.
When talking about these ideas, he talked endlessly, and his excitement was palpable. He said that reform and development are always issues of common concern to human society. Precisely on these issues, Chinese economists have a golden opportunity to enter the world economics stage... But when I took a roundabout way and asked him how he came back from Taiwan and asked about his personal story, his The answers became very cryptic and short. His eyes were still bright, but he showed a very humorous and somewhat mysterious smile, and said: Let's talk about the present and theory...
This Lin Yifu!
In 1979, an American won the Nobel Prize in Economics that year for his "human capital" theory. He is Schultz, professor of economics at the University of Chicago.
Two years later, Schulz came to China to give lectures and arrived at Peking University. The school sent a translator for Professor Schultz, a young man who not only understood economic theory but was also proficient in English. Schulz's lectures were very successful, and the understanding on and off the stage was satisfying. Schulz felt the young people's skills and talents. Schultz returned to the United States and wrote a letter to the young translator, asking him to study for a doctorate at the University of Chicago after receiving a master's degree in economics. As if it was a dream, fate made special arrangements for Lin Yifu: The United States sent a special person in Beijing to invigilate the exam alone, and let Lin Yifu take the "TOEFL" make-up test. Then, he got an offer from the University of Chicago.
It must have been when he came to the atmosphere of the "Chicago School" at the age of 30 that Lin Yifu finally decided to embark on the path of exploring economic theory. The ideal began to focus from this moment on. At the age of 40, when he faced Chinese reporters as an outstanding economist, he gave the impression of rationality and calmness, but ideals and passion - the driving force that prompted him to return across the sea more than ten years ago, have already It became something buried deep inside my heart.
Justin Yifu Lin completed his PhD in 4 years, which is considered the fastest among the School of Economics at the University of Chicago. In the year of graduation, he gave a speech at a development economics conference in Arizona. His original ideas about the changes in China's agricultural system aroused the appreciation of the American economists present at the conference. After that, Justin Yifu Lin received employment letters from five American universities and universities in other countries. Three of them expressed their willingness to provide him with a tenure-track position; the World Bank was also interested in hiring him to work...
At that time, The 13th National Congress of the Communist Party of China has not yet been held. Overseas students are both concerned and anxious about whether the reform can continue. Friends advised him to wait until the situation became clearer before deciding whether to stay or go. But Lin Yifu quickly made the decision to return to China. On June 19, 1987, Lin Yifu and his family boarded a plane from Washington to Beijing.
This is Lin Yifu’s second return. The first time was in 1979, when the two sides of the Taiwan Strait regarded each other as enemies, Yifu left behind his 3-year-old son and his pregnant wife, and tried every means to return to the mainland to work. He once left a message to his wife and children: If I fail to witness the reunification and rejuvenation of the motherland, I hope that my children and daughters can overcome my father's ambition.
"Recalling that when I was young, I often longed for the time when I could return to my motherland to work. To keep this wish in mind, I named my son and daughter after the red sun in the east - the rising sun and the rising sun. However, After five years of living in the United States, Xuchu and Xi have forgotten even the Hokkien dialect. The purpose of returning to China is not only to participate in the reform, but also to stand up and become proud Chinese for the next generation." Later, in an article, Yifu said. Speak your heart.
Since then, Yifu and I, as well as his beautiful and intelligent wife Yunying, have become very familiar. In the large, cool living room of his house, he and I had a long conversation. I gradually understood why Yifu was unwilling to talk more about his early years, and I decided to respect his wishes and not ask about it or write too much about it.
However, even putting aside that legendary past, I still have many "whys" about him. Once, in front of Yunying, I asked Yifu directly: Do you want to win the Nobel Prize?
In fact, there have long been rumors in the domestic economics circles that Lin Yifu's research in recent years is aimed at the Nobel Prize.
After returning to China for 8 years, Lin Yifu has been tireless and creative, and has made great achievements in the field of economic research. In these years, he has published 22 papers in Chinese academic journals, 14 papers in English paper collections, been invited to participate in international lectures and submitted 40 papers, and also published 18 papers in English academic journals. It should be noted that well-known foreign economics magazines generally use anonymous review methods and do not calculate royalties, and the number of published papers is usually the main indicator of an economist's achievement in the world. Lin Yifu publishes an average of 3 papers per year, which is more productive than some already influential foreign economists.
In fact, Justin Yifu Lin has outstanding theoretical innovations in his research on institutional change and technological change. His research results have been published in famous foreign economics magazines and have been widely cited, marking his research. has entered the international leading level.
In 1992, the American Economic Review, the most authoritative economic academic journal in the United States, published Lin Yifu's paper. This is the first time in many years that this publication has published an article by a mainland economist. Not long after, another authoritative American journal, "Political Economics Research," published a discussion volume on one of Lin Yifu's papers. For mainland economists, this is another first.