Ha-Joon Chang

Ha-Joon Chang is, to me, the rare economist who writes like he genuinely wants ordinary people to understand power. Seoul-born and a Cambridge fixture for three decades before moving to SOAS, he turned institutional and development economics into something readable, even combative, puncturing free-market orthodoxy with real-world evidence. The Leontief and Gunnar Myrdal prizes confirm his standing, but what I value is his refusal to hide behind jargon. He insists economics is about how people actually live, and that conviction makes his work feel less like a lecture and more like an honest argument worth having.

Name (English)

Ha-Joon Chang

Name (Japanese)

ハ・ヨンジュン・チャン

Reading

は・よんじゅん・ちゃん

Born

October 7, 1963 (age 62)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Libra / Rabbit

Origin

Seoul, South Korea

Occupation

economist

University

University of Cambridge

Awards & achievements

• 2005 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought
• Gunnar Myrdal Prize

Motto

Private

• Official sitehttps://hajoonchang.net/
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%8F%E3%82%B8%E3%83%A5%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%83%81%E3%83%A3%E3%83%B3

Tags

• economist

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.