University of Virginia Library

Yukon Huang

Economist For The Poor

Profile

By Linda Eichelbaum
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

Combining his Oriental heritage with
his American education, Yukon Huang
teaches economic techniques that may be
applied equally to American ghettos and
the world's rural poor.

New to the University, the Acting
Assistant Professor of Economics says
that "the study of economics has to do
with the welfare of people. The theory
can be used to help the welfare of
mankind especially in rural areas."

Mr. Huang teaches in the Economics
Department of Underdeveloped Areas,

and he helps his students explore the situation
of the world's impoverished areas.

Born on the mainland of China, Mr. Huang
received all of his education in the United
States. He earned his undergraduate degree in
Economics at Yale, his Masters Degree at
Princeton and will receive his Ph.D. from
Princeton in June.

While working on his doctorate, Mr. Huang
spent last year at the University of Malaya
studying the reaction of the Malayan peasant
farmers to new technology and the "Green
Revolution" (the use of new seeds and double
cropping.)

From this study, Mr. Huang concluded that
the peasants' reactions were generally rational
in the more commercialized areas that had
contact with the Western World. In the more
isolated places the peasants tended to be more
irrational — therefore the stereotype of the
peasant arises from his environment, not his
character as people often believe.

Through his experiences in teaching, Mr.
Huang said that he has found that today's
student is searching for relevancy in everything.
This outlook disturbs him because, he says, it is
dangerous for a young person to know what is
relevant and what is not. The most relevant
thing a person can learn, he says, is to think and
analyze. Therefore, he feels, any subject which
helps teach a student to do so is relevant.

"Problems change with the times, but the
ability to think about them doesn't," he said.
The subject matter is not as important to him
as the techniques a student uses in learning it
are.

In his own classes, Mr. Huang uses three
criteria to judge relevancy; The comprehension
by a student of the less developed countries,
the techniques of analysis used in economics,
and the exposure of the understanding of poor
people. He says that students are justified to
inquire as to the relevancy of a course because
often a discussion with the professor will
disclose many facets of the course to the
student.

Mr. Huang continued by saying that "there
is an emphasis on teaching at the University,
more so than at either Princeton or Yale.
People put an effort into a course and try to be
good teachers."

To him students' complaints often arise
from a failure to communicate with their
teachers. He says the faculty is somewhat at
fault but the student is also, because he does
not get to know his teachers well, either after
class or through office hours.

Mr. Huang added that there is a surprising
number of problems which can be solved
through open discussion between the student
and teacher because once they know the other's
feelings they can view the problem through
another framework.

Concerning the national economy, Mr.
Huang says that President Nixon's major
mistake is that he is not lucid enough in selling
his policies. The American people are trying to
curb inflation and decrease the emphasis on the
Vietnam War. Mr. Nixon, he says, is trying to
implement both policies at once; he is cutting
military spending and closing plants thereby
causing the unemployment rate to rise.

Mr. Huang says that there is a gap in
understanding between different
socio-economic groups of each other's culture.
Each group is anxious to express their feelings
to outsiders because they assume the outsiders
are not interested in their problems and they
close up. He feels that people must learn to
understand each culture but within the
framework of that culture, realizing its own
criteria for performance.