Dr. Hu is a research fellow at the Rural Development Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences based in Beijing, China. His current academic interests are in the rise of the new governance and institutional analysis in rural China. His latest publications include Informal Institutions and Rural Development in China (Routledge, 2007) and A Village Economy in Central Thailand: Testing Chayanov’s Model (Thai Watana Panich Press, 2007). He received his B.A. in economics from Zhongnan University of Economics and Law in China, and a M.S. from a joint program of the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok Thailand and the University of Dortmund in Germany, and a Ph.D. in economics from Witten/Herdecke University in Germany.