Heiwai Tang is Professor of Economics at Hong Kong University (HKU). Prior to HKU, he was Associate Professor of International Economics at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He is also Research Fellow of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, the Center of Economic Studies and Ifo Institute (CESIfo) in Germany, as well as the Globalisation and Economic Policy Center in the U.K. He has been a Consultant to the International Finance Corporation, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, United Nations, and held visiting positions at the Harvard University, MIT Sloan School of Management, Stanford University, IMF, and RIETI.

Tang received his Ph.D. in economics from MIT and undergraduate degree in mathematics from UCLA. His research interests span a wide range of theoretical and empirical topics in international trade, with a specific focus on production networks and global value chains. His research has been published in leading journals in economics, including American Economic Review, Journal of International Economics, and Journal of Development Economics. He has also written articles for Financial Times, Foreign Policy, the Brookings Institution, and the Peterson Institute for International Economics.​