Sai is a Professor of Economics at the Adam Smith Business School. Before joining Glasgow in 2010, she earned a PhD in Economics from the University of Birmingham and completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in Economics at the University of Oxford.

Professor Ding has published extensively in the fields of corporate finance, economic development, productivity, and international trade, with her work appearing in leading economics and finance journals. She is a member of the ESRC Peer Review College, a reviewer for the British Council and Newton Fund, and a Research Assessor for the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. Additionally, she serves as a mentor for the Royal Economic Society Women's Committee and is an external member of the China Research Group at Nottingham University Business School. Professor Ding is a Co-editor of the Review of Development Economics and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Chinese Economic & Business Studies. At the University of Glasgow, she co-heads the Economics department with a focus on internationalization and has successfully organized numerous international academic events, including the Royal Economic Society Conference in 2023, as well as several international workshops on the Chinese economy and various in-person and online public lectures and seminars with Nankai University in China.

CV: Sai Ding CV

Sai is a member of the School's Applied Economics research cluster.

Areas of expertise:

• Productivity and trade; 
• Corporate finance; 
• Growth and development; 
• The Chinese economy.

List by: Type | Date

01/2020-12/2023 Co-Investigator, National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Research Grant on the project of ‘Inter-Regional Industrial Policy Competition, Market Segmentation and Spatial Misallocation’ (480,000 CNY) with Wei Jiang (Principal Investigator, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, China)

01/2018-12/2020 Co-Investigator, National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Research Grant on the project of ‘A Micro-level Study on the Impact of Fiscal Policy Volatility on Resource Misallocation in China’ (200,000 CNY) with Wei Jiang (Principal Investigator, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, China)

11/2016-07/2017 College of Social Sciences Senior Research Fellowship at Columbia University (£3,180)

January 2016 - May 2016: Workshop funding (£13,500) from the Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE), the Confucius Institute at the University of Glasgow, and the Adam Smith Business School.

March 2015 - March 2016: Academic Returns and Research Support Grant (£9,200) from the College of Social Science, University of Glasgow

May 2013 - September 2013: Workshop funding (£12,000) from the Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE), the Confucius Institute at the University of Glasgow, and the Adam Smith Business School.

April 2009 - December 2009: Principal Investigator, ESRC Small Research Grant (£74,420) on the project of 'Understanding Enterprise Investment in China' (Ref No. RES-000-22-3140) with Professor Alessandra Guariglia (University of Birmingham) and Professor John Knight (University of Oxford).

Sai is interested in supervising projects examining:

• Trade and productivity
• Innovation
• Infrastructure and development
• Corporate finance and investment
• The Chinese economy

Current doctoral superivision

Postgraduate:

• Growth and Development (MSc);
• Money, Finance and Growth (MSc).

Undergraduate:

• Economic Growth, Finance and Development (Honours; level 3).

• April 2014-present: Research Assessor of Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland
• November 2012-present: Editorial Board member, Europe-Asia Studies
• July 2010-present: Member of ESRC Peer Review College