It was not until 1979 was admitted to Central South Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (now the predecessor of Central South University) that he left his hometown in Chaling County for the first time and came to Changsha, a big city. There are many students from the city in the class. "Only by comparing with them can we know how far they are from their own living conditions and the influence of their parents and families."
When studying at National University of Defense Technology, Chen Zhiwu often borrowed books from Hunan Library. What impressed me the most was the influential series Towards the Future in the 1980s, and a series of classic works translated and introduced by the Commercial Press to western thinkers and political scientists. "What influenced me the most was Friedman's Free Choice."
At this time, he met Cui Zhiyuan, who influenced him to embark on the academic road. At that time, Cui Zhiyuan was only a freshman in the Department of Mathematics. He has read many books. In high school, he published articles on literature, history and philosophy in university journals and had contacts with Li Zehou. Chen Zhiwu's initial interest in social science and philosophy was influenced by Cui Zhiyuan.
1986, National University of Defense Science and Technology teaches Chen Zhiwu.
In the mid-1980s, the trend of studying abroad also reached this corner. Chen Zhiwu began to try to apply to some American universities. He wrote to an old professor at Yale University, asking about the possibility of applying for a doctorate. "I didn't take the TOEFL and GRE exams, because the foreign exchange control in China was very strict at that time. It cost 32 dollars to take these exams, but I couldn't find a dollar. So I wrote to the Yale professor in charge of enrollment to explain why. After I explained to them, they promised to exempt me from TOEFL and GRE exams. "
At the suggestion of Cui Zhiyuan, Chen Zhiwu chose finance. "At that time, I didn't even know what the word finance meant. He showed me some books at the time, but I still didn't understand. " Four months later, the admission notice from Yale University changed his life. He boarded the plane to America with dozens of dollars.
1990, Chen Zhiwu received a doctorate in economics from Yale university. He once taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Ohio State University, and was promoted to associate professor of finance in 1997 and professor of finance in 1999, and then returned to Yale University for life.
His research results are increasingly published in American Economic Review, Economic Theory, Financial Economics and other mainstream journals. In the financial and economic circles of the United States, Europe, Japan, China and Hongkong, the name Chen Zhiwu is well known by more and more people.
In July, 20001year, on the plane from Shanghai to new york, Chen Zhiwu turned to a Caijing magazine of that month. "I watched it from beginning to end and was very surprised. This is no different from Businessweek in the United States, and there is no ideological bureaucratic tone of domestic magazines in the past. "
From then on, Chen Zhiwu began to pay attention to China's economic phenomena and problems. 200 1 year is the turning point of China A shares. At that time, Caijing exposed a series of insider trading scandals such as Shenzhen Century Xinyuan and Yinguangsha. Wu Jinglian thus threw out the "stock market casino theory". A few months later, the stock index dropped from 2245 to 998, and the China stock market entered a bear market for more than four years. In media, the governance of listed companies has become an important topic.
From 200 1 to 2002, Chen Zhiwu opened a column in New Fortune, introducing American securities law, regulatory rules, laws, litigation cases and insider trading.
In 2006, The Wall Street Journal published the list of the top ten economists in China. This eye-catching list takes academic influence as the most important evaluation index, followed by economic influence and social influence. Chen Zhiwu is one of them. He has compiled and published books such as 24 Lessons of Fortune, The Logic of Finance and Chen Zhiwu's Talk on China Economy. Among them, The Logic of Finance links history, social culture and modern finance, and expounds boring professional financial problems in a popular and interesting way, trying to answer the reasons for the backwardness of modern China from another possibility. Especially, the application of financial analysis in China's traditional Confucian ethics has aroused great social interest and heated discussion.