Chinese economist Shi Zhengfu will address how recent market and political reforms are deeply linked in his April 24 lecture, "China's Reform as an Indigenous Institutional Innovation: An Inquiry into the Characteristics of Political and Economic Systems in China." The talk, sponsored by the Clarke Program in East Asian Law and Culture, is at 4:30 p.m. in the Weiss Faculty Lounge, Myron Taylor Hall.

"Dr. Shi is one of China's most influential and visionary individuals," says Professor Annelise Riles, Clarke Program director. "He is at the forefront of imagining what China's capitalist future should become. His ideas about how market reforms can coexist with, and even foster social justice, have wide relevance beyond China to other developing nations, and even to developed nations such as our own."

Shi's lecture will serve as the keynote presentation for the two-day Clarke International Consortium on "Law and Social Justice in Emerging Markets."

This multidisciplinary conference will take place Friday, April 25, from 9 a.m to 4 p.m. and Saturday, April 26, from 9 a.m. to noon, in the Institute for the Social Sciences Conference Room in Myron Taylor Hall. Leading scholars from China, Japan, Israel and the United States will explore a broad range of new approaches to markets and their regulation during the conference, which is co-sponsored by the Clarke Business Law Institute and the Cornell East Asia Program.

For more information about the conference see http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/spotlight.cfm?pageid=62254.

Shi founded and directs the Center for New Political Economy at Fudan University in China, where he is a professor of economics. He is also founder and chair of Comway Capital, Ltd., one of few very successful private equity funds in China. His research concentrates on such major issues of Chinese reforms as socializing state-owned enterprises, managing national wealth and ensuring financial security and development under globalization. He has written many articles and several books on the Chinese economic system.