On December 5th, the awarding ceremony of Contemporary Economics Prize 2020 was held, at which Xiong Wei and Wang Jiang, prize winners of The 3rd Contemporary Economics Prize, Justin Yifu Lin and Shang-Jin Wei, prize winners of The 4th Contemporary Economics Prize were awarded with gold medals and certificates.

Jointly initiated by renowned economist, entrepreneurs, and prominent citizens in China, National Economics Foundation (NEF) is aimed to impel theoretical innovation and economics science to prosper. The foundation, an international academic platform for the theoretical economics researchers of Chinese origin, will award those innovative Chinese Economics researchers, carry forward the academic thoughts of economics researchers of Chinese origin and encourage Chinese economists to make contributions to the world’s economics science.

Prize winners of The 3rd Contemporary Economics Prize are Xiong Wei, Academic Dean of School of Management and Economics (SME), The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (CUHK-Shenzhen), Academic Director of Shenzhen Finance Institute (SFI), professor of Princeton University, and Wang Jiang, professor of Finance in Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The prize is awarded to them for their outstanding contributions in the area of finance. The key contribution of Prof. Xiong Wei focuses on studying market frictions and behavioral biases that lead to imperfections and inefficiencies in the global capital markets. While Prof. Wang Jiang's research interest is mainly on introducing market frictions into new classical financial theory to form a new theoretical framework for asset pricing.

Prof. Xiong Wei is one of the world’s most influential scholars in the field of finance, and has played an important role in international academia and government decision-making. On June 26th, 2018, he has been invited to be the inaugural academic committee fellow of Luohan Academy by the Alibaba Group. The 15 fellows of the committee are composed by global top scholars, including Bengt Holmström, a microeconomic theorist, best known for his research on the theory of contracting, Alvin E. Roth, the chair of the American Economic Association's Ad Hoc Committee on the Job Market, and 6 other Nobel Laureates in economic sciences.

Prof. Xiong Wei accepted the award and addressed his speech via video. He expressed that, “The theory and experience of western financial market development can provide a good reference and guidance for the rapid development of China's financial market. Meanwhile, the development of China's financial market can provide experience for the financial and economic development of emerging economies. Hence, research on China's economic and financial issues is of great value to global economic and financial research.” Thereby, in recent years, he has extended his research fields to the development and management mode of China's financial market.

Recently, the Handbook of China’s Financial System edited by Prof. Xiong Wei and collaborators was officially published by Princeton University. The Handbook covers various aspects of China’s financial system and is written by top scholars at home and abroad. Together with many scholars, he also initiated an English platform—VoxChina to release academic research information based on China’s economic and financial system regularly. Prof. Xiong Wei expressed that, he is willing to build a bridge for the world to understand China’s finance.

Ever since 2015, Prof. Xiong Wei has become the Academic Dean of SME, CUHK-Shenzhen. “To build a brand new, internationalized School of Management and Economics” became his new goal. Upon the occasion of the awarding ceremony, he extended an invitation to all experts and scholars: “ Welcome to visit CUHK-Shenzhen.”