Charles Wolf Jr.

Senior Research Fellow
Biography: 

Charles Wolf Jr. is a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution. He also holds the chair in international economics at the RAND Corporation, and is a professor of policy analysis at the Pardee RAND Graduate School.

He is an expert in international economic policy, relationships between economic issues and foreign and defense policy, particularly in Asia and Europe, and international risk assessment.

His recent research has focused on long-term economic and military trends in Asia and Europe, as well as on the economies of China, Japan, and Korea. His current research includes estimating the costs of Korean reunification and how to limit them, and a separate study of the Russian economy and its prospects.

He has written more than 250 articles and more than a dozen books on economics, defense, and international affairs. Among the latter are Looking Backward and Forward: Policy Issues in the Twenty-first Century (Hoover Institution Press, 2008), Linking Economic Policy and Foreign Policy (Transaction, 1991), Markets or Governments: Choosing between Imperfect Alternatives, 2d ed. (MIT Press, 1993), The Economic Pivot in a Political Context (Transaction, 1997), Economic Openness: Many Facets, Many Metrics (Rand, 1999), Straddling Economics and Politics: Cross-Cutting Issues in Asia, the United States and the Global Economy (Rand, 2002), Fault Lines in China's Economic Terrain (co-authored) (RAND 2003), and North Korean Paradoxes (2005).

Wolf is published frequently in national newspapers including the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and the Asian Wall Street Journal and is a director of several large mutual funds.

He is a member of the advisory board of the Center for International Business and Economic Research at UCLA's Anderson Graduate School of Business. He is also a member of the editorial boards of the Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, Society, and the Independent Review and a member of the American Economic Association, the Econometric Society, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

Wolf has served with the Department of State, the Economic Cooperation Administration, and the Foreign Operations Administration. He was dean of the RAND Graduate School from 1970 to 1997, and chairman of Rand's Economics Department from 1967 to 1982.

He has taught at Cornell, the University of California at Berkeley, and UCLA. In 1976 he was a visiting fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford.

Wolf received BS and PhD degrees in economics from Harvard University, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

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Recent Commentary

Analysis and Commentary

A Liberated Yuan Is Likely to Fall

by Charles Wolf Jr.via Wall Street Journal
Monday, April 21, 2014

'Currency manipulation" is a charge repeatedly leveled against China in recent years. Prior to 2014, U.S. pundits and lawmakers denounced interventions by its central bank, the People's Bank of China, that prevented the yuan's rise from about 16 cents (6.25 yuan per U.S.

Austerity Versus Stimulus

by Charles Wolf Jr.via Hoover Digest
Friday, October 18, 2013

Either approach might work. The question is how the private sector responds.

Analysis and Commentary

The Strategy Behind China's Aid Expansion

by Charles Wolf Jr.via Wall Street Journal
Tuesday, October 8, 2013

In 2001, China spent roughly $1.7 billion on foreign aid. By 2011, the annual foreign-aid figure had risen to $189.3 billion. Part of the increase reflects the growth in China's economy.

Global Austerity
Analysis and Commentary

Austerity and Stimulus—Two Misfires

by Charles Wolf Jr.via Wall Street Journal
Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Why is it that in the United States the "stimulus" solution to the economy's ills has performed badly while in Europe the opposite approach, "austerity," has performed even worse?

 

Economics Abstract
Analysis and Commentary

Book Review: A Truly Great Leap Forward

by Charles Wolf Jr.via Wall Street Journal
Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Ronald Coase ranks among the world's most influential economists, yet he rarely appears in the media spotlight. That's because he channels his influence through other economists, while maintaining a prudent distance from the glare of quotidian policy disputes. Mr.

Developmental Corruption in China

by Charles Wolf Jr.via Policy Review
Friday, February 1, 2013

Charles Wolf Jr. on Double Paradox: Rapid Growth and Rising Corruption in China by Andrew Wedeman

In the News

The Economist's Pantheon

by Charles Wolf Jr.via Policy Review
Friday, March 30, 2012

Charles Wolf, Jr. on Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius by Sylvia Nasar...

The Economist's Pantheon

by Charles Wolf Jr.via Policy Review
Friday, March 30, 2012

Charles Wolf, Jr. on Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius
by Sylvia Nasar

In the News

Economists at War

by Charles Wolf Jr.via Policy Review
Monday, August 1, 2011

Charles Wolf, Jr on Keep From All Thoughtful Men: How U.S. Economists Won World War II by Jim Lacey...

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