Renowned economist Gao Shanwen dies at 55 after battle with cancer

Gao Shanwen, one of China’s most influential economists, whose outspoken views on the country’s economy made him one of its most closely watched market commentators, died at 55 on Tuesday after a battle with cancer, according to Chinese media reports. Over a career spanning three decades, Gao rose to become one of China’s best-known market economists. His incisive research on China’s business cycles, the property market, and the broader macroeconomy earned him a dedicated following among institutional investors. Born in 1971, Gao earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Peking University before joining the People’s Bank of China in 1995, where he began his career in macroeconomic research and policy. In 1999, he began doctoral studies at the PBOC’s graduate school, under then-central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan, completing the programme in 2005. Gao joined Everbright Securities in 2003 before becoming chief economist at Essence Securities in 2007. He held the post for more than a decade, remaining in the role after the brokerage was renamed SDIC Securities in 2023, and ultimately leaving the firm in 2025. During more than two decades in the securities industry, Gao developed a distinctive framework for interpreting China’s economy. Grounding his work in causal inference and empirical evidence rather than market consensus, he produced influential research on China’s potential growth, credit cycles, inflation dynamics and asset-price revaluation. His standing among peers in the industry was reflected in repeated first-place finishes in the macroeconomics category of the annual New Fortune Best Analyst rankings – one of China’s most prestigious surveys of securities analysts – before he withdrew from the competition in early 2012.