Wan Junmin

Biography

I was born into a Chinese farming family. I am the eldest son and have two younger brothers. When I was 14 years old, I passed an extremely difficult entrance examination and entered the National College of Electronic Engineering, which is now part of Jiangxi University of Economics and Finance. After studying electronic engineering for 4 years, I was assigned a job in a state factory in July 1989. I was aware of many serious problems in the factory, which eventually went bankrupt in 1997. I then obtained a position with Hong Kong Enterprises, in Dongguan City, Guangdong Province in the first quarter of 1992. Still unhappy in my work, I joined the Center for Medical Equipment, which was part of the Jiangxi Province Health Agency, as an engineer engaged in the maintenance and repair of medical equipment, in the last quarter of 1992. Through this job, I was lucky enough to be sent to Japan to study medical equipment, from 1 June 1993 until 31 March 1994, as a medical equipment maintenance trainee, on an ODA project of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Kaigai Gijutsu Kenshuin, in Japanese). Consequently, by the age of 23, I had experience as a farmer, a worker in a government-owned corporation, a foreign capital enterprise engineer, a civil servant, and a student in Japan. During my ten-month stay in Japan, I was impressed by both Japanese technology and Japanese society. Why can Japanese companies make such high-quality goods? Why do communications and transportation in Japan run like clockwork? Why do Japanese civil servants have such good manners? Why is education so widely available in Japan? Why are there so few farmers? Why is the Japanese social order so good? …? …? I wanted to answer all these questions, but how could I? To find the answers, I first became determined to study Sociology, then considered majoring in law, and finally decided to study Economics, which examines the efficient distribution of resources, and how to enrich people and society. This is called “Jin Shi Ji Min” in Chinese or “Keisei Zaimin” in Japanese. Therefore, I quit my job and moved to Japan again to study Economics on 6 June 1995. After 6 months in a Japanese language school, I successfully took the entrance examination for the School of Economics of Osaka University in April 1996, and since then I have been undertaking research in this field. I specialize in economics as it relates to human nature, and examine the appropriate or ‘rational’ regime for humans and society. My aim is to make poor countries or poor people richer, even if only slightly, and to make them happier. I plan to continue this work until the day I die.

Research Interest

Macroeconomics, Public Economics, Finance, Behavior Economics, Development Economics, US-China-Japan Economies (Theoretical and Empirical Approaches)