Yew-Kwang Ng is an economist

Economist

An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...

 at Monash University

Monash University

Monash University is a public university based in Melbourne, Victoria. It was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. Monash is a member of Australia's Group of Eight and the ASAIHL....

. He graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce

Bachelor of Commerce

A Bachelor of Commerce is an undergraduate degree in commerce and related subjects. The degree is also known as the Bachelor of Commerce and Administration, or BCA...

 from Nanyang University

Nanyang University

Nanyang University was a university in Singapore from 1956 to 1980. During its existence, it was Singapore's only Chinese language post-secondary institution...

 in 1966 and later a Ph.D. from Sydney University in 1971.

He holds a personal chair at Monash and has been a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 since 1980. He is renowned for his work in welfare economics

Welfare economics

Welfare economics is a branch of economics that uses microeconomic techniques to evaluate economic well-being, especially relative to competitive general equilibrium within an economy as to economic efficiency and the resulting income distribution associated with it...

. He helped establish mesoeconomics

Mesoeconomics

Mesoeconomics is a neologism used to describe the study of economic arrangements which are not based either on the microeconomics of buying and selling and supply and demand, nor on the macroeconomic reasoning of aggregate totals of demand, but on the importance of under what structures these...

 as a simplified, tractable general-equilibrium

General equilibrium

General equilibrium theory is a branch of theoretical economics. It seeks to explain the behavior of supply, demand and prices in a whole economy with several or many interacting markets, by seeking to prove that a set of prices exists that will result in an overall equilibrium, hence general...

 analysis with both micro and macro elements. He proposed welfare biology as a subject. He collaborated with Xiaokai Yang

Xiaokai Yang

Xiaokai Yang was a Chinese-Australian economist. He was one of the world's preeminent theorists in economic analysis, and an influential campaigner for democracy in China....

 on an inframarginal analysis of division of labour

Division of labour

Division of labour is the specialisation of cooperative labour in specific, circumscribed tasks and likeroles. Historically an increasingly complex division of labour is closely associated with the growth of total output and trade, the rise of capitalism, and of the complexity of industrialisation...

. He has published more than one hundred refereed papers in economics and papers on biology

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

, mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

, philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

, psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

, and sociology

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

. He has published a Kungfu novel in Chinese serialized in Nanyang Business Daily (Malaysia) and as a book The Unparalleled Mystery (1994).

Ng has received a number of awards in recognition of his work. He was recently made a Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Society of Australia, the highest award that the Society bestows. In moral philosophy, he is a firm believer in utilitarianism and has provided strong arguments supporting it, including in his Efficiency, Equality, and Public Policy.

Articles

• 1982. "A Micro-Macroeconomic Analysis Based on a Representative Firm," Economica, N.S., 49(194), p p. 121-139.
• 1984. "Quasi-Pareto Social Improvements," American Economic Review, 74(5), p p. 1033-1050.
• 1992. "Business Confidence and Depression Prevention: A Mesoeconomic Perspective," American Economic Review, 82(2), p p. 365-371.
• 1995. "Towards Welfare Biology: Evolutionary Economics of Animal Consciousness and Suffering," Journal Biology and Philosophy, 10(3), pp. 255–285. Abstract.
• 1997. "A Case for Happiness, Cardinalism, and Interpersonal Comparability," Economic Journal, 107(445), p p. 1848-1858.
• 2001. "Welfare-reducing Growth Despite Individual and Government Optimization," Social Choice and Welfare, 18(3), pp. 497–506 with Siang Ng Abstract.
• 2001. "Is Public Spending Good for You?," World Economics, 2(2), pp. 1–17, with Harold Bierman. Abstract.
• 2003. "From Preference to Happiness: Towards a More Complete Welfare Economics, Social Choice and Welfare, 20(2), pp. 307-350. Abstract.
• 2006. "Population Dynamics and Animal Welfare: Issues Raised by the Culling of Kangaroos in Puckapunyal," Social Choice and Welfare, 27(2), pp. 407–422, with Matthew Clarke.
• 2007. "Eternal Coase and External Costs: A Case for Bilateral Taxation and Amenity Rights, European Journal of Political Economy, 23(3), pp. 641–659. Abstract.

Books

• 1979 and 1983. Welfare Economics (London: Macmillan),
• 1986. Mesoeconomics: A Micro-Macro Analysis (London: Wheatsheaf).
• 1990. Social Welfare and Economic Policy (London: Wheatsheaf)
• 1993. and Economic Organization (Amsterdam: North-Holland, with X. Yang)
• 1994. The Unparalleled Mystery (Beijing: Writers Press). ISBN 7-5063-0695-6
• 1998. Increasing Returns and Economic Analysis, ed. with Kenneth Arrow
  Kenneth Arrow
  Kenneth Joseph Arrow is an American economist and joint winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics with John Hicks in 1972. To date, he is the youngest person to have received this award, at 51....
  
   and X. Yang (London: Macmillan). Description & ch. previews.
• 1999. Economics and Happiness (Collected papers in Chinese) (Taipei: Maw Chang).
• 2000. Efficiency, Equality, and Public Policy: With a Case for Higher Public Spending (London: Macmillan).

External links

• Yew-Kwang Ng's Home Page
• EconPapers of Yew-Kwang Ng