International trade and economic development. China, and especially China's environmental problems and policies.

Alasdair MacBean is an Emeritus Professor of Economics. He is a graduate of the Universities of Glasgow and Oxford, and spent two years as a Fellow of Harvard University. His main interests are in international trade and economic development. He has taught economics at the Universities of Oxford, Glasgow, Michigan ( Ann Arbor, USA), Humboldt ( Berlin, Germany), Fudan, (Shanghai) and People's University (Peking) P.R. China. He has also worked as an economic adviser for the Harvard Development Service in Pakistan, for the British Ministry of Overseas Development and as a Special Adviser to a House of Lords Committee on International Commodity Problems. He spent a year at the World Bank in Washington as a member of the team that wrote the World Development Report, Industrialization and International Trade (1987) while on leave from Lancaster University. He has been a consultant to the UNDP, FAO, the World Bank, the British-North America Committee, US AID, and several firms of international consultants.

He attended and addressed the Plenary Session of the South East Asia Conference on Economics and Management between South Korea and China on 24th October 2008 in Beijing. The Conference theme was "Management and the Economy" and his presentation was on the "Prospects for Renewable Industries in China".

Consultancy Roles

He has been a consultant on foreign trade policy issues for TACIS/EU, UNFAO, UNDP, USAID, theWorld Bank, and several private consultancy firms. He has also been a consultant on the setting up of the National University of Laos and on establishing academic and applied research there.

B.Phil, Oxford MA, PhD, Glasgow

Economics of reform in transitional economies especially international trade policy. Environmental issues in China, Influence of the Chinese diaspora in the UK.