Event Time
Friday, September 18, 2026
Noon to 1:15 PM
Open to the Yale community and invited scholars.
Location
Institution for Social and Policy Studies, Room A002
77 Prospect Street
New Haven, CT 06511
Speaker
Hongbin Li
Faculty Co-Director of the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions; Senior Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research; Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University
Description
Populations Studies Workshop
Abstract
Every year more than 10 million students across China sit for the gaokao. Unlike in the United States, where standardized tests are one factor among many, college admission in China is determined entirely by that single score – so it is no wonder the exam has become a national obsession. Named one of the best books of 2025 by The Economist, The Highest Exam combines personal narratives with decades of surveys, historical research, and economic analysis to ask why preparation begins before first grade, why families are behaving rationally when they pour money and years into the test, how the exam serves the Party and drives the country’s growth, and what its promise of meritocracy conceals. And why those questions are now turning up in American schools.
Biography
Hongbin Li is a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), and a professor of economics (by courtesy) at Stanford University. A leading scholar on the Chinese economy, he earned his Ph.D. from Stanford in 2001 and previously held chair professorships at Tsinghua University and The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research draws on large-scale, first-hand data, much of which he collects through extensive field studies, including the China Employer-Employee Survey, which tracks data from 2,000 manufacturing firms and 20,000 employees, and the China College Student Survey, an annual study covering over 10,000 fresh college graduates. His widely cited research continues to shape academic and policy debates on the Chinese economy.