Barry Naughton
Barry J. Naughton is an American economist and the So Kwanlok Chair of Chinese International Affairs at the University of California, San Diego's Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies.
Education: He earned a BA in Chinese Language and Literature from the University of Washington in 1975, an MA in International Relations from Yale University in 1979, and a PhD in Economics from Yale in 1986.
Work and ideas: In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Naughton published the first Western studies on China’s Third Front campaign to build basic industry and national defense in the interior. His work is widely cited by other Western historians studying this topic.
Naughton argues that the nomenklatura system—how the Communist Party manages its leaders—helps keep China united. He also notes that rural collectivization moved forward more smoothly in China than in the Soviet Union partly because China already had a network of state institutions in the countryside.
Books and awards: His 1995 book, Growing Out of the Plan: Chinese Economic Reform, 1978–1993, won the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize. He contends that China's economic reform happened without a single grand vision, arising instead from a mix of market-like incentives and government experimentation.
Public service: He participates in the Task Force on U.S.-China Policy organized by Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China Relations.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 09:24 (CET).