Earlier this summer, we announced the recipients of our 2024-25 An Wang and Hou Family fellowships. Now, we would like our community to get to know these special scholars a bit better.
Like Shengqiao Lin, whose Q&A we published yesterday, David Qihang Wu is a recipient of the Fairbank Center’s An Wang Postdoctoral Fellowship. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley, and his research interests include labor market frictions faced by firms in developing countries and the cultural impact of large Chinese firms on workers in sub-Saharan African countries. David’s current project combines causal inference techniques and extensive fieldwork in Ethiopia to provide an on-the-ground understanding of the “soft-power” impact of China in developing countries.
At the Fairbank Center, Wu will also work alongside Lin on collaborative research projects related to China and the global political economy, under the guidance of Meg Rithmire, Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, and David Yang, Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for History and Economics at Harvard.
In his Q&A with us, Wu shares his perspective on how “cultural exchange” figures into the relationship between Ethiopian workers and Chinese private enterprises, recommends a math book, and expresses his (baffling!) desire to endure Boston’s frigid weather season.
What excites you most about the research you will be doing this academic year?
I feel very honored to be part of this vibrant research community and very excited to interact with so many scholars with overlapping research interests. Before I’ve even officially started, a few other postdoctoral fellows have already reached out to brainstorm new research ideas, and we are already designing some exciting new projects together. This year is going to be fun!
What made you decide that the Fairbank Center was the right place for you to be at this point in your academic career?
I really appreciate the interdisciplinary nature of the Fairbank Center. So many brilliant scholars working on China issues from so many different perspectives. Some of my ideas in economics come from reading works by sociologists, political scientists, or historians. I am curious to see what new ideas we can come up with to push the frontier of China research!
There are a lot of opinions about China’s relationship with, and economic interest in, Africa. What do you think is the most important thing for people to understand about the relationship, labor-related or otherwise?
My sense is, there is an important shift in China’s investment pattern in Africa. The old paradigm focuses more on infrastructure and resource exploitation, while in the recent decade, there are more private Chinese manufacturing firms that establish new factories in Africa and employ more local workers. The new paradigm is more market-oriented and more organic and seems to have gained momentum over time, but I don’t think we know much about it. We need to talk to more local workers and private Chinese firms to understand what’s been going on in the last ten years.
Whenever I visit Ethiopia for my research, I chat with Ethiopian workers about how they perceive private Chinese firms. A lot of them really admire these Chinese businessmen and aspire to be like them, despite the huge differences in languages and cultures. They listen to Mandarin pop music, learn useful Chinese phrases, and maybe more importantly to economists, some of them have started to work long hours and weekends, like Chinese businessmen. Meanwhile, from my interviews with some private Chinese companies in Ethiopia, I believe they are also experiencing a learning curve over the last ten years. Some of their previous management practices may be productive in China, but these backfired in Ethiopia, so they’re trying new practices to better manage local workers. There seems to be a very interesting cultural exchange between private Chinese firms and local Ethiopian workers that can potentially helps us understand China’s relationship with Africa, present and future.
What are you most excited to do during your time in Cambridge?
Having coffee and chatting with as many people as possible. Going to see some concerts by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Experiencing a real New England winter. Spending a weekend on Martha’s Vineyard (big fan of Jaws).
Did you read any books or articles this summer that you would like to recommend?
One (slightly more academic) book I really like is Mathematica: A Secret World of Intuition and Curiosity (Yale University Press, 2024), by a French mathematician David Bessis. It has one of the best discourses of what “intuition” means in scientific research, in my opinion. It has helped me reflect on myself: how I do research and how I may approach a question through a more meditational, perhaps more efficient, approach. Another book that really struck me is a classic novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston. The book is so beautifully written; it reads like a poem, and has a lot of thought-provoking, deep discussions on racism and feminism.