Nicholas Hope is the former director of the Stanford Center for International Development and previously directed SCID's China research program. His current research is private enterprise development in China and progress of reforms in China, especially in the financial sector. His interests are in East Asian economies, especially China and Indonesia, and his teaching interests are in development of Asian economies, role and effectiveness of international financial institutions, and thesis supervision of students working in those areas.

Prior to coming to Stanford, Hope worked at the World Bank as Country Director for China and Mongolia, and Director of the Resident Staff in Indonesia. He is the co-editor, with Dennis Tao Yang and Mu Yang Li, of How Far Across the River?: Chinese Policy Reform at the Millennium. He also co-edited, with Belton M. Fleisher, Anita Alves Pena, and Dennis Tao Yang, Policy Reform and Chinese Markets.

Hope received his PhD from Princeton University, and his undergraduate degrees from Oxford University and the University of Tasmania. He was awarded the Tasmanian Rhodes Scholarship and a research fellowship from the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.