Justin Yifu Lin (Chinese: 林毅夫; pinyin: Lín Yìfū), born on October 15, 1952, in Yilan County, Taiwan, as Zhengyi Lin, (simplified Chinese: 林正义; traditional Chinese: 林正義; pinyin: Lín Zhèngyì) is a Chinese economist.
Lin is a former Taiwanese military officer who defected to Mainland China in 1979. Lin transferred from a soldier to an economist when he started studying economics at Peking University and later went on to pursue a Ph.D at the University of Chicago. After finishing his doctoral dissertation, he returned to Beijing and became a professor at Peking University, founded the China Center for Economic Research (which was later upgraded to the National School of Development) and was appointed Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of the World Bank where he served from 2008 to 2012. After that, he returned to Beijing and to his research at Peking University.
His main academic theory is called New Structural Economics.

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