Published 6 August 2014
Faces – Young Scientist Profile: Jun Lou
The new edition of Faces features young economist Jun Lou from China.
In Faces we portray the young scientists of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings and give them an open forum to talk about their research and everything else that is important to them. Everybody should feel encouraged to also share their own thoughts and stories.
On her research interests:
“My research is about two directions: green finance and institutional investors. For the first one, it’s about the relationship between environmental pollution regulations and listed companies’ performances. I think the topic is interesting because in the current world, we need to find an integrated method for environmental protection and developing economy. Therefore, how to figure out a sustainable economic way is important. The second research direction is about the investing differences between home investors and foreign institutional investors, to figure out whether introducing foreign investors could make the Chinese stock market more stable.”
On the challenges of an economist’s life:
“Actually, I have met a big obstacle when I wanted to enter economic studies. I am not a traditional economic student because my undergraduate and graduate majors are both not in economics. It was especially difficult for me to pass the entry exam for my Ph.D. programme. However, after my master degree and two years’ working experience, I think economics is my true love and I am curious about every aspect of it. Knowing that, I began to study micro- and macroeconomics by myself and visited public classes for learning. I think it’s the passion that led me to economics.”
On her road to Lindau:
“Last June, I saw a notice about the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting on my school’s official website. At first, I thought it would be too high-level and wondered if I was qualified for this meeting, so I didn’t apply for it immediately. After 3 days of thinking about it over and over again I decided to submit my application, dreaming about the chance to participate and hear the Nobel Laureates’ lectures. Besides, Germany is a country I wanted to visit since I was an undergraduate. The nomination process takes quite long so I nearly gave up. But then, last December while I was at Moscow University, I got a phone call at 4am from my graduate school teacher, telling me I could prepare for the second step of the nomination process. I was very excited that I passed the first test, and worried about the second challenge – a face-to-face interview. I did take a lot of time to prepare for the interview. When I faced 8 economic experts in Beijing this February, I felt nervous but tried to calm down, introducing my research and myself. I feel this nomination process is not only a process to apply for this meeting, but also a process to recheck what I have done so far. No matter what the result would have been, taking on this challenge did help me to rethink myself, and I gained a lot from it.”
On her expectations on the Lindau Meeting on Economic Sciences:
“I want to say there are almost too many things to look forward to. Listening to Nobel Laureates’ lectures is absolutely the most attracting aspect to me. In fact, I am excited to meet some of the Nobel Laureates in person, such as Maskin, Stiglitz, Hansen, Diamond orMerton. Since I have only read their names in books before I am highly looking forward to face-to-face lectures this time. I am also looking forward to meeting young economists from other countries. I’m Curious about how economic research is done in their countries and I want to communicate and have debates with other participants.”
To join the discussions and reach out to other participants use the Twitter Hashtag: #LindauEcon14.