Li Yang is Chairman of National Institution for Finance & Development, Former Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). He was elected one of the first academic members of the CASS. He is deputy to the Twelfth National People's Congress，and members of the NPC Financial and Economic Committee.

Li Yang specializes in the fields of monetary theory, banking and public finance. He served as member of Monetary Policy Committee in the People’s Bank of China from 2003 to 2004. He is currently 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; and member of the Academic Committee of Intercross-Science Research Centre for Natural Science and Social Science at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is an advisor for a number of provincial and municipal governments. He was named the Academician of InternationaI Academy of Sciences for Europe and Asia(IASEA) in 2011. 

He was awarded the Honorary Title of “National Young Outstanding Specialist” by the State Council in 1992. Li Yang has written and translated 23 books and over 400 articles. He edited six major finance reference books. He has chaired more than 40 national and ministerial level research projects and international collaborative projects. His book An Economic Analysis of Fiscal Subsidies and other articles have received five awards of “Sun Yefang Economic Science Award”, the most important prize for economics in China. His recent major awards include “2015 China’s Soft Science Prize”, “2015 Sun Yefang Financial Innovation Award”, and “2016 Zhang Peigang Award in Development Economics”.

Li Yang graduated with a BA in economics from Anhui University in 1981 before he obtained a master at Fudan  University in 1984 He completed his Ph.D. in public finance at Renmin University of China in 1989. He was a visiting professor at Columbia  University in 1998-1999.