Li Yang was born at 1951 in Anhui province. He completed his Ph.D. in public finance at Renmin University of China in 1989. He was a visiting scholar at Columbia University in 1998-1999. Li Yang served as the Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) from 2009 to 2015. He was elected one of the first academic members of the CASS. He is an academician of the International Academy of Sciences for Europe and Asia (IASEA). He is also a 12th National People's Congress representative and a member of the NPC Financial and Economic Committee. From 2003 to 2004, he served as a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the People’s Bank of China, and etc. Li Yang is currently the Chairman of the Board of Directors for the National Institute for Finance and Development; Vice President of the China Society for Finance & Banking; Vice President of the China Public Finance Society; Vice President of the China International Finance Society; Vice President of China ocean research association; and a member of the Academic Committee of Intercross-Science Research Centre for Natural Science and Social Science at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He also acts as an advisor to a number of provincial and municipal governments. Li Yang specializes in the fields of finance, macroeconomics and public finance. He has written and translated 23 books and over 400 articles and has chaired more than 40 national and ministerial level research projects and international collaborative projects. He has on five occasions received the “SunYefang Prize for Economic Science”. In 2015, he has received the “SunYefang Financial Innovation Prize” as well as “China Soft Science Prize”.