Ligang Song is Professor of Economics and Head of the Arndt-Corden Department of Economics at the Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University. His research interests include international economics, institutional economics, development economics and policy studies, and the Chinese economy.

Professor Song has been involved in organising the annual China Update conferences at ANU since 1998 and co-editing the China Update book series with ANU E Press since 2002 and jointly with Social Sciences Academy Press of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences since 2007.

COVID-19 expertise

The COVID-19 pandemic broke out at the time when there were heightened uncertainties in the global economy at the turn of the second decade of the 21st century. Understanding these uncertainties provides an important background for analysing the impact of the pandemic on the global economy, assessing the effectiveness of those policy measures in combating the economic contraction due to the pandemic, and predicting the trajectory of the economic recovery in post-pandemic era.

The widespread lockdowns in preventing the spread of the virus especially in those major economies the world halted all the economic activities ranging from transport, manufacturing to services leading to severe contraction of economic activities and rising unemployment. Studies are needed to see why containing the spread of the virus is a pre-condition for policy measures in boosting both supply and demand to work. We also need to consider some more fundamental changes in technology, structural reform and re-integration of the global economy being carried out for those policies to work more effectively.