Personal Statement

Parallel to the transition of China’s economic system from the conventional planned economy to market economy, important changes have happened in the daily life of our family. My grandparents moved from their old adobe house into a modern compartment while my parents have provided me with a necessary financial support for a first-rate college education when, more than a decade ago, they could hardly afford my tuition for the elementary school. People tend to reflect on those things that are most closely connected with their life in the real world and it is the same case with me.

As a student of financial economics at the School of Economics & Information of xx University, I have informed my study of economics with active thinking and with efforts to translate my thoughts into research papers rather than passive intake of knowledge. When learning Macroeconomics, students were required to investigate the impact of industrial restructuring on local industrial workers (xx Province being China’s largest heavy industry base). Instead of using official labor statistics based on a limited number of cities and covering only the registered unemployed, I designed and conducted my own surveys on local employment situation. I not only won 91 points, the highest score of the class, but also was asked to join the professor’s research project. The result was my publication of a research paper xx. With its detailed and accurate statistics, cogent analysis and constructive solution proposals, my paper was collected in the xx.

A crucial factor has made me a research student. In the 2nd semester as a sophomore, I was admitted into the Weekend Economics Workshop hosted by Prof. x x x to graduate students. This gave me extra academic input. Although for the first two weeks I was frustrated over various esoteric mathematic models, I studied 15 hours a day for the rest of the three months—the long booklist on my library card and many fat notebooks I kept indicated my painstaking efforts. Toward the end, I was one of the most active participants in group discussions and a member of Prof. x x x’s research project on xx. In the summer vacation, I came up with another paper xx examining how to improve the level of basic endowment insurance by reforming the insurance system and utilizing the capital market. The paper was awarded the first prize in the National Specialized Theses Assessment and collected into xx, for which I was invited to attend in xx City in the xx earlier this year.

Doing coursework and research has been just part of my rewarding academic career. My strong sense of social responsibility and mission prompted me to launch in 2002 the Speculation Society, a student organization, through which I have endeavored to contribute to the student community through my organization and leadership. I named the society “Speculation” because I wished that, together, the members could speculate on and inquire into our country’s social and economic issues and they can be prepared to use their knowledge in the service of the larger society. As chair of the organization, I have been responsible for arranging regular seminars where students and faculty involve in live interactivity. In May 2003, I led the Society in colleting and analyzing data for the research project on xx headed by our school’s president, and our contributions laid a firm foundation for the research group’s successful completion of the project.

Having studied a whole spectrum of economics and finance courses, I have achieved a GPA of 3.8, with special aptitudes in Mathematics (average score being 93, again the highest in the entire class). One thing special about my academic career is that I have completed a second degree in Business English in The School of Foreign Languages of our university. Compared with most of my classmates, I have demonstrated greater academic initiative and goal-oriented drive.

A distinctive feature of my economics research is that it is closely alloyed with my research in financial sphere. In Sept. 2003, my society members and I interned at the Finance Bureau of xx Municipality. In addition to enhancing my ability to apply theoretical knowledge to practice, I published a paper xx in The Journal of x x x, which is a national core journal. I analyzed how loan securitization can solve the low level of capital sufficiency of Chinese banks (as measured by Basel Agreement), proposed appropriate criteria in asset selection and how SPV, SPC, SPT can be applied to Chinese circumstances. A separate paper on the similar subject—xx— has been published in The Journal of x x x , a provincial-level scholarly journal.

It is on the strength of my mature academic and research achievements that I file this application for a Ph.D. program in Economics at your esteemed xx University. Your Department of Economics has long been a training ground for professional economists, with more than 40 full-time faculty members covering a broad range of research interests and conducting leading-edge research. According to my research, Prof. x x x specializes in research on issues of Chinese economics and I would like to identify him/her as my potential supervisor under whom I wish to carry out fruitful research and publish more insightful research papers on a host of topics of mutual interest.

A thinking individual is the kind of person I want to be. Even when I was a high school student, I published a book consisting of my observations and reflections on a diversity of social issues and phenomena. I believe this habit will stay with me for the rest of my life. Now that I have been initiated me into serious economics research, I believe your Ph.D. program will be a fresh starting point for me, and is bound to be more exciting because it is more advanced and challenging.