Bob Ash is Professor of Economics with reference to China and Taiwan at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, where he teaches in two Departments - those of Economics, and Financial and Management Studies. Since 1999 he has been Director of the SOAS Taiwan Studies Programme, and in 2010 he was awarded the Freedom medal of Diplomacy by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the ROC Government. From 1986 to 1995 he was Head of the Contemporary China Institute at SOAS. During 1997-2001 he was Coordinator and Director of the EU-China Academic Network – a major initiative to establish a community of interest among academics, government and professional bodies, and individuals working on China within EU Member States. He has held visiting research and teaching positions at universities in Australia, Hong Kong, France and, most recently - at the University of Turin - in Italy. He has written or edited 15 books on China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, as well as many articles, book chapters and other reports and short papers. He has been a consultant for a number of international banks and multinationals, and in recent years has worked with the ILO on problems of rural employment and migration. His current major research interests – all relating to China - are sustainable development, China’s regional economic development, food security, energy, population and employment, consumption, and social welfare issues.

Edited Books

2003       (With Christopher Howe and Y.Y. Kueh),  A Survey of the Chinese Economic Reforms (London: Curzon Press [Taylor and Francis]).

2006 a    (With Ho Lok-Sang), China, Hong Kong and Taiwan: A Study in Globalisation (Houndsmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).

2006 b    (With J. Megan Greene) Taiwan in the 21st Century: Aspects and Limitations of a Development Model (London and New York: Routledge).

2007       (With David Shambaugh and Seiichiro Takagi), China Watching: Perspectives from Europe, Japan and the United States (London and New York: Routledge).

2011       (In press) (With John Garver and Penelope B. Prime), Taiwan’s Democracy: Economic and Political Challenges (London and New York: Routledge)

Chapters in Edited Books

2005       “China’s regional economies and the Asian Region: building interdependent linkages”, David Shambaugh (Ed.), Power Shift: China and Asia’s New Dynamics (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press), pp.96-131.

2006 a    “Recent developments in Chinese agriculture and prospects for future agricultural trade: observations from the grain sector”, Ho Lok-Sang and Robert Ash (Ed.), China, Hong Kong and Taiwan: A Study in Globalisation (Houndsmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), pp.296-316.

2006 b    “Demography and food production”, Czeslaw Tubilewicz (Ed.), Critical Issues in Contemporary China (London: Routledge), pp.143-66.

2006 c    (With Joseph Lin and C.J. Wu), “The Kuomintang’s economic legacy”, Bi-yu Chang, Dafydd Fell and Henning Klöter (Eds.), What Has Changed? Taiwan’s KMT and DPP Eras in Comparative Perspective (Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz), pp.83-106.

2006 d    (With J. Megan Greene), “Introduction”, Robert Ash and J. Megan Greene (Eds.), Taiwan in the 21st Century: Aspects and Limitations of a Development Model (London and New York: Routledge), pp.   1-9.

2007 a    (With David Shambaugh and Seeichiro), “Introduction”, Robert Ash, David Shambaugh and Seeichiro Takagi (Eds.), China Watching: Perspectives from Europe, Japan and the United States (London and New York: Routledge, pp.1-15.

2007 b    “Studies of China’s economy in Europe”, Robert Ash, David Shambaugh and Seeichiro Takagi (Eds.), China Watching: Perspectives from Europe, Japan and the United States (London and New York: Routledge, pp.19-49.

2007 c    “Managing China’s land resources in an era of sustainability”, Yan Song and Chengri Ding (Eds.), Urbanisation in China: Critical Issues in an Era of Rapid Growth (Cambridge, Mass: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy), pp.117-41.

2008 a    “Europe’s commercial relations with China”, David Shambaugh, Eberhard Sandschneider and Zhou Hong (Eds.), China-Europe Relations: Perceptions, Policies and Prospects (London and New York: Routledge), pp.189-230.

2008 b    “Migration and employment: a rural perspective”, Nazrul Islam (Ed.), Resurgent China: Issues for the Future (New York and London: Palgrave), pp.72-102.

Articles in Refereed Journals

2006 a    "The High Tide in Jiangsu: A perspective from local sources of the time”, The China Quarterly, No. 187 (September), pp.743-53.

2006 b    "The long-term outlook for economic reform in China”, Asia-Europe Journal, Vol. 4, No. 2 (June), pp.177-96.

2006 c    “Squeezing the peasants: grain extraction, food consumption and rural living standards”, The China Quarterly, No. 188 (December), pp.959-98.

2010       “The Chinese economy after thirty years of reform: perspectives from the agricultural sector”, The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 28, Issue 1, pp.36-62.