Dr. Paul Armstrong-Taylor has been Resident Professor of International Economics at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center since 2010. In the interview below, he shares insights into his courses, favorite HNC memories, the tight-knit community in Nanjing—and even offers some thoughtful advice for future students and alumni.
Can you tell us a bit more about your role at the HNC (e.g., what do you teach, do you advise thesis students, lead any trips/student groups, etc.)?
1) Comparative Economics: a broad applied economics class looking at topics in China and the US which I think are interesting and that people are talking about. Sometimes these are comparative, other times they are just specifically interesting. Topics can include inequality, investment, trade, and finance. This class doesn’t require prerequisites, and there is no math or theory required, which helps students with no background understand the landscape.
2) Corporate Finance: I introduce bond and stock pricing with core fundamental finance skills. The second part of the class looks at financial problems businesses face: mergers and acquisitions, venture capital, raising money, dealing with risk, and corporate governance. I think the class is useful for people who are working in finance, but also for helping students understand personal finance.
3) Financial Crises: We look at subprime crises including the 2008-2009 financial crisis, the Euro crisis, and look at current financial risks in China to try and understand the framework of thinking for financial crises. The class examines the role of debt in creating financial crises, how it builds up, and its manifestation in said crises. Understanding these processes is useful to understand what happens in different countries at different times.
4) International Monetary Theory and Policy: this is a required course on open macroeconomics, and we think about the effects of policies on trade and investment flows. Theory is required and this is a standards-based course.
5) Strategy: this is an applied game theory class. We learn the basics of game theory and apply it to different areas, including economic and business areas, but also politics/IR areas. We take a set of tools and think about where we can use these tools in different fields.
Besides my course load, I do advise Chinese students on their master's theses, as economics is very popular among Chinese students! For my personal research, I focus on China’s financial systems; I wrote a book on this. It connects to a few of my courses, including comparative economics and corporate finance. I am also interested in economic geography and how cities develop. Shanghai, for example, has a higher income level and productivity than its surrounding areas, and I think it is very interesting how this affects housing prices, etc.
I also organize extracurricular activities, which I think we are going to chat more about later. I used to run a volunteer teaching program at local schools in China, but it stopped over COVID.
I first became interested in China after I became friends with Chinese and Taiwanese students during my masters’ degree. I came to China in 1998 after I graduated from my masters’, and it was a very interesting time - China was changing quickly and opening up. I think at that time China didn’t have as much of a central place in the Western view as it does now. After my first visit, I would come every 2-3 years for a month during the summer to travel. I got the China bug – it was different, interesting, and exciting.
In 2006 I got a position in Shanghai to work at Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s business school. I have been in China for 19 years now, apart from COVID. Things have certainly changed over time. When I came to live here in 2006, China was still in opening and developing, a belief that China was trending to liberalize politically as well as economically, was the hope and expectation. It was more open than it is now. I still think China is interesting from an economics point of view.
What drew you to the HNC as a professional?
I joined the Hopkins-Nanjing Center faculty in 2010. HNC is a perfect spot as a China academic; you can work for an American university but in China, with an American contract. The HNC has a long history, since 1986, and our founding academic freedom was set then. I think we have better academic freedoms here than the other foreign partnerships in China. We are different, we are a U.S. university, not a Chinese university with a Western label. We do have a lot of freedom within the academic center, and nowhere else in China do we have this same freedom. This is very valuable, and something I think people underestimate about the Hopkins-Nanjing Center. We can discuss anything within the HNC; our freedom to teach and hold student discussions is broad, but there are still limits on publishing controversial papers or holding controversial public talks.
For example, I came back to China in October of 2022. At that time there were the white paper protests, controversies about fires in Xinjiang, and protests in Shanghai. I wanted to have a discussion about it with the students. A few international students stayed through COVID, and I asked the Chinese Co-Director if we could have a discussion about these protests using Western news sources and videos, which were highly sensitive. They said yes and we were able to have this discussion with faculty and students, about a highly sensitive topic, within China. I think this is an example of what you can do here that you cannot elsewhere.
The HNC also has a real sense of community. We are fairly small, around 200 people, and everyone knows everyone else. International professors live on campus and eat in the cafeteria, we do activities outside of the classroom. There is a much closer relationship between faculty, staff, and students, and more family atmosphere than other places.
What has been most fulfilling for you in your role as an HNC faculty member?
I enjoy teaching and organizing extracurricular activities; I really like my job! When you are a professor, you get alumni reaching out to you about using the things you have taught them in their lives. Any time you get this feedback from students about making a positive impact on their careers and lives, it means a lot.
You are known as a professor who engages with students on a personal level, sitting with us at lunch, and hosting the annual Hogwarts House sorting and subsequent competition. Can you share more about the Hogwarts competition and how you think it impacts students?
Regarding Hogwarts, it was a student who organized the first Hogwarts competition, so I cannot take the credit! I followed what he did. At the start of the fall semester, everyone fills out a quiz and ranks themselves on different adjectives. Then, I sort students based on these adjectives, which are coded towards one of the houses. You need the houses to be balanced, Chinese and international, male and female. I will roughly try to sort them this way. Hogwarts is not about Harry Potter; it's just a fun way to divide students into teams. We have a series of activities where teams can score points. One is a team general knowledge quiz where half the questions are in English, half are in Chinese. The knowledge is both US and China focused, I get help for the Chinese questions. This incorporates teamwork between cultures. I also do a scavenger hunt. Students have to work together to solve the clues, and they find places around the HNC they wouldn’t normally go to. I also host the team assassins' game; you try to help your teammates kill their target or avoid getting killed. This creates interesting strategy and betrayals (some students invite friends to dinner so their teammate can kill them)!
I think there can be a tendency to stick to who you know, often this is along country lines, but the Hogwarts competition creates the chance to expand your team and get to know people you wouldn’t otherwise know. During COVID, people online lost their sense of community. After COVID, I wanted to foster this again, and rebuild it, as students are desperate to do things together that they couldn’t do before.
So far, what has been your favorite memory of being at the HNC?
I came back to China after zero-COVID as soon as I could. In December 2022 the big first wave of COVID hit, 90% of people at the HNC got it. It severely affected the staff, the cafeteria was closed and the cleaners, cafeteria workers, everyone really was off sick. Students were isolating in their rooms; it was a difficult period. I remember that the students banded together to help each other out, creating groups for everything. The students had to do things normally done by staff. Students would create groups for food delivery, trash removal, and medicine delivery. I sent packages of ibuprofen to students with COVID! Everyone pulled together during this difficult time. It was a special time, it bound people together in a way that normally does not happen. The students stepped up, and it made me proud of the HNC. We went the right way, looking after the group, not just focused on ourselves.
Beyond the HNC, what is your favorite thing about living in Nanjing?
I think Nanjing is a city that is not as well known or as visited, especially compared to Beijing and Shanghai. HNC has a great location in the center of the city, and it is very walkable. You can walk around a beautiful lake, Xuanwu Hu, and climb Purple Mountain just a few metro stops away. You have history, nature, and great food! We definitely need to work on the opportunity for students to do more outside the HNC. I personally think Nanjing is a great place to live!
If you could say anything directly to our alumni community, what would you say?
If at some point a professor’s teachings had a positive impact on your life, please reach out and let them know, because it will make their day. Alumni can really give great career advice to students. If you are a recent alumnus, and you have experience navigating the job market and applying to jobs, this is really valuable information for students going through this process now. Please connect with career services at the HNC (hnccareerservices@jhu.edu), as they would love to hear from you! Students would love it if you could give a talk, either in person or virtual, on your expertise, or just answer questions! Your experience is valuable - maybe more so than senior people. It is really helpful for students to know about the day-to-day work of specific jobs!
What advice would you have for future students?
If you can get to Nanjing at any point, please come visit! We are happy to host you! Admissions (nanjing@jhu.edu) can put you in contact with professors and current students. We are a friendly group, ask your questions, we are happy to help!
