Media

HKU Business School cordially invites you to attend the fifth Conference on the Future of Hong Kong Economy (the “Conference”), following the recent publication of the “Hong Kong Economic Policy Green Paper 2026” (link here).

Dedicated to advancing impactful Hong Kong economic policy research and fostering positive community change, the Conference has been held for five times and enjoyed a history of serving as a vital platform for the exchange of timely ideas and policy insights from some of the world’s most distinguished scholars, policymakers, and business leaders. We invite you to take part in this year’s insightful presentations and panel discussions.

This year, we are honoured to host Professor Joel Mokyr, recipient of the 2025 Nobel Prize for Economic Science, as our Keynote speaker. Prof. Mokyr is a key figure in studying the interplay between technology, science, and economic growth, deeply influencing how institutions foster or hinder innovation. In Mokyr's latest book, "Two Paths to Prosperity: Culture and Institutions in China and Europe, 1000–2000," he compared how social and political structures led to Europe's and China's different growth. He has also argued that AI represents a "virtuous cycle" between scientific theory and practical technology that could help solve today’s challenges, such as how AI is a "general-purpose technology" that can drive innovation by lowering production costs. Especially relevant are his ideas on how AI and other innovations are crucial for humanity to address climate change, demographic transitions, and potential future pandemics.

We will also have Keynote presentations from Dr. Horace Cheung Kwok-kwan, SBS, JP, Deputy Secretary for Justice of the HKSAR Government, and Dr. Jack So Chak-kwong, GBM, GBS, OBE, JP, Former Chairman of the Airport Authority, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, and the MTR Corporation.

The Conference will also feature five highly newsworthy panel discussions, where our distinguished speakers will discuss the future of the global economy, how AI innovation will shape the next economic frontier, the ‘New Silk Road’ of Hong Kong as a launchpad for global expansion, Hong Kong’s path toward greater global financial innovation, entrepreneurship, leadership, and more.

Date: 21 January 2026 (Wednesday)
Media Registration:9:00 a.m.
Conference: 9:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Venue: Island Ballroom, Island Shangri-La, Admiralty, Hong Kong
Language: English with Simultaneous Interpretation (in Putonghua)

About Professor Joel Mokyr:
Joel Mokyr is the Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Economics and History at Northwestern University and Senior Professor (by special appointment) at the Eitan Berglas School of Economics at the University of Tel Aviv. He specializes in economic history and the economics of technological change and population change. He is the author of Why Ireland Starved: An Analytical and Quantitative Study of the Irish Economy, The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress, The British Industrial Revolution: An Economic Perspective, The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy, The Enlightened Economy: an Economic history of Britain, 1700-1850 and A Culture of Growth. His most recent book is Two Paths to Prosperity: Culture and Institutions in Europe and China, 1000-2000, (with G. Tabellini and A. Greif) published by Princeton University Press in 2025. He has authored over 120 articles and books in his field.

He has served as the senior editor of the Journal of Economic History from 1994 to 1998, and was editor in chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History (published in July 2003), and serves as editor in chief of a book series, the Princeton University Press Economic History of the Western World. He served as President of the Economic History Association 2003-04, President of the Midwest Economics Association in 2007/08, President of the Atlantic Economic Association (2015/16), and is a director of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He serves as chair of the advisory committee of the Institutions, Organizations, and Growth program of the Canadian Institute of Advanced Research. He served as chair of the Economics Department at Northwestern University between 1998 and 2001 and was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford between September 2001 and June 2002.

Professor Mokyr has an undergraduate degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a Ph.D. from Yale University. He has taught at Northwestern since 1974 and has been a visiting Professor at Harvard, the University of Chicago, Stanford University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of Tel Aviv, University College of Dublin, and the University of Manchester. In 2006, he was awarded the biennial Heineken Prize by the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences for a lifetime achievement in historical science. In 2015, he was awarded the Balzan Prize for Economic History awarded once every twenty years. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a foreign fellow of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences, the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, a corresponding fellow of the British Academy, and a Fellow of the Econometric Society and the Cliometric Society. In 2018, he was elected as a distinguished fellow of the American Economic Association.

His books have won a number of important prizes, including the Joseph Schumpeter Memorial Prize, the Ranki prize for the best book in European Economic history, the Donald Price Prize of the American Political Science Association, and the Allan Sharlin Prize of the Social Science History Association. He was made a doctor honoris causa by the National University of Uruguay in 2018, and by the University of Lyon II in 2020. He was awarded the Jonathan Hughes Prize for excellence in the teaching of economic history by the Economic History Association in 2019. In 2025, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economic Science, together with Peter Howitt and Philippe Aghion.

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