Tao (Louie) Clovis Xu Jul 2025

TX 

Tao Louie Xu, M.Sc. 許韜
(he/they)
Graduate School of Social and Political Science
The University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh EH8 9LD
Scotland, U.K.
Email: tao.clovis.xu[at]outlook[dot]com
[CV] [LinkedIn] [ORCID] [RePEc]

About Tao

Rerum cognoscere causas, a motivated individual graduating with the highest distinction from NUFE and a merit from the University of Edinburgh, preparing my doctoral application in the political economy of development to study the microfoundations of industrial policy and political settlements from an ideological change perspective. Proficient in NVivo, Stata, ArcMap, Python and open to both qualitative & quantitative methodologies, with extensive industrial and academic experience gained from Mazars, Deloitte, Duke Kunshan, NUFE, UoEdin, SUFE, and Fudan. Involved in a range of heterodox and evidence-based economics research on the political economy of urban & international development, political settlements framework, industrial policy, transport infrastructure policy, and entrepreneurship, looking for the most and least represented samples from localities with diverse formal and informal institutions. Committed to continuous personal development, and seeking more professional challenges in international organisations and research universities to apply my knowledge and a transferable skill set.

Education

  • M.Sc. Development Studies (International Development Studies, Merit)  University of Edinburgh

      Dissertation: The Road Not Taken? Industrial Policy and Political Settlements in China and Indonesia 1990–2022
      Supervisor: Hazel Gray, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer in African Studies & International Development
      Key Modules: Anthropology of International Development; Politics and Theories of International Development; Research Design & Practice; Resource Politics and Development; Interpreting Development Institutions & Practices; Governance, Development and Poverty in Africa; Key Skills in Development Practice

  • B.Sc. Economics (Commercial Economics, 1st: 91.29)  Nanjing University of Finance & Economics

      Dissertation: Towards Sustainable Prosperity? Policy Evaluation of Jiangsu Advanced Manufacturing Clusters
      Supervisor: Yabei Hu, Ph.D., Professor of Industrial Economics
      Key Modules: Microeconomics; Macroeconomics; Econometrics; Industrial Economics; International Economics; Regional & Urban Economics; Regional Market and Interregional Trade; Platform Economics; Business Economics; Economics of Business Enterprise; Economic History; Management Studies; Business Design & Innovation; Retailing and Wholesaling Studies; Marketing; Procurement & Supply Chain Management

Honours & Awards: Jiangsu Provincial Government Scholarship for Overseas Studies, Jiangsu Provincial Distinguished Dissertation Award 1st Class, NUFE Principal’s Scholarship, NUFE Honours Graduate, NUFE Distinguished Dissertation Award, NUFE Honours Student, NUFE Outstanding Student Leader Award, NUFE Merit Scholarship for Academic Excellence, NUFE Merit Scholarship for High Calibre

Skills, Courses & Certifications: IELTS Academic C1, NCRE L2 (Excel Access Publisher Canva), Text Analytics & Econometrics (Stata NVivo VOSviewer ArcMap Matlab CiteSpace), Understanding Research Methods @SOAS, Game Theory @UBC & Stanford, Korean Economic Development @Yonsei, Local Economic Development @EUR, Microeconomics of Health Care Delivery & Comparative Health Systems @UPenn, Health Systems Development & Epidemiology @UNC Chapel Hill & Imperial College London, New Structural Economics & Behavioural Economics & Advanced Quantitative Social Research @Peking University & Central University of Finance and Economics

Summer/Winter Schools, Workshops & Seminars

  1. Jul 2024, 2025  Chinese Academy of Sciences, AI in Economic Theory & Methodology, Adv/Grad [Certificate]

  2. Jul 2025  Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Advanced Modern Economics, Adv

  3. Aug 2023, 2025  Nanjing Agricultural University, Research Methodology in Applied Economics, Adv [Certificate-Outstanding Student Award]

  4. Jul 2023, 2024  Wuhan University, Marxian Political Economy, Adv [Certificate-Distinguished Paper Award]

  5. Aug 2023  Nanjing Normal University, Big Data Analytics in GISciences, Adv [Certificate-Outstanding Student Award]

  6. Jan 2022  UCLA & University of Saint Joseph, International Business Management [Certificate-Excellent A]

  7. Mar 2024  Edinburgh CAS, Landlord State and Precarious Urban Agriculture in Accra

  8. Nov 2023  Edinburgh CAS, Political Economy of Extractivist Development in Ghana

  9. Sept 2023  Edinburgh CAS, Global Politics of African Identity: Pan-Africanism & Afropolitanism

Honours & Awards: NAU Outstanding Student Award, NNU Outstanding Student Award, WHU Outstanding Student Award, WHU Distinguished Paper Award

Publications

  1. "Towards Sustainable Prosperity? Policy Evaluation of Jiangsu Advanced Manufacturing Clusters,"
    with Yabei Hu*, honoured by Jiangsu Provincial Distinguished Award
    Technology in Society, 2024, 77, 102583  [PDF]

      2. The government of China, to hone manufacturing's competitive edge, has adopted a series of regional industrial policies to stimulate advanced manufacturing clusters as facilitators of agglomeration effects, utilisers of factor endowments, and implementers of innovation solutions, by playing the role of facilitating state. Focusing on advanced manufacturing cluster policies in East China's Jiangsu Province, the research employs a mixed data analysis methodology on a sample of 52 documents collected from the Jiangsu government and affiliated units. The policy orientations and priorities are examined under the triple analytical framework in terms of themes, instruments, and controls, applying textual mining and the PMC index model. The results reveal the alignment of policy themes with high-quality development strategy, the government preferences for the supply dimension in policy instruments, the emphasis on planning directive in policy controls, together with the relatively high internal consistency of the AMC policy toolkit by Jiangsu. Therefore, the research spotlights the importance of leveraging comparative strengths based upon the facilitating state institution, and of deploying internally coherent, scientific, and efficient initiatives that exploit more potential of advanced manufacturing clusters to foster sustainable prosperity from the perspective of new structural economics.

Work in Progress

  1. "When Polanyi Met Schumpeter: Social Trust and Entrepreneurship,"
    with Weiwei Zhu*, MPRA 123894, 2025  

  2. "The Third Way: Reinterpreting the Political Settlements Framework with Structuration Theory,"
    SocArXiv nmvhq, 2024

  3. "The Road Not Taken? Industrial Policy and Political Settlements in China and Indonesia 1990–2022,"
    supervised by Dr Hazel Gray, UoE PGSP11291 s2475073, marked as Dissertation of Distinction, 2024

  4. "It Takes Three to Ceilidh: Pension System and Multidimensional Poverty Mitigation in China,"
    with Yansong Wang*, and Cheng Yuan, arXiv 2411.02807, 2024  [PDF]

  5. "Peasant Life in Changing China: Rural Pension System Reform and Social Insurance Participation,"
    with Zhengyi Hu, advised by Dr Yongliang Wu, arXiv 2204.00785, 2022

Reports, Presentations & Book Reviews

  1. "Economic Growth, Poverty Mitigation, and Social Policy in our Neoliberal Era: A Polanyian Perspective," ResearchGate 385654163, 2024, Edinburgh

  2. "Transformative Communication in Development Organisation: Strategic Engagement and Celebrity Influence," MediArXiv 8kabz, 2024, Edinburgh

  3. "Turbulence and Order in Economic Development: Economic Transformation in Tanzania and Vietnam by Hazel Gray," 2024, Edinburgh

  4. "Belt of Productivity, Road to Equality: China's Infrastructure Initiative as the 'People First' Development in Indonesia," 2023, Edinburgh

  5. "Having People, Having Heart: Charity, Sustainable Development, and Problems of Dependence in Central Uganda by China Scherz," 2023, Edinburgh

  6. "Common Prosperity and the Middle Class," WHU Proceedings of the Summer Institute on Marxian Economics, 2023, 4, 1–5, Wuhan, honoured by WHU Distinguished Award

  7. "The Theory of Economic Development by Joseph Schumpeter," 2022, Nanjing

  8. "Frontiers and Evolution of Employment Studies in China," with Weiwei Zhu, advised by Prof Dr Wenwu Zhang, 2021, MPRA 112908, Nanjing

  9. "Survey on Local Pharmaceutical Specialty Stores: Retail Formats and Elements," with Y Gu, Y Wang, Dapeng Zhu, Wei Li, Zhenyu Zhang, Jingxia Hou, and Yuhan Yang, advised by Prof Jinguo Tao, 2021, Nanjing

  10. "The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau," 2021, Nanjing

  11. "A Study of History by Arnold Toynbee," 2021, Nanjing

  12. "Mismatch and Dysfunction of the Ageing Economy: Digital Transformation in Silver-Hair Industry," with Yukun Gu, Yibo Wang, Yansong Wang, and Qifei Chen, Journal of the Jiangsu Association for Commercial Economics, 2021, 38, 1–9, Nanjing

  13. "Reshaping Silver-Hair Industry with New Retailing: A SWOT-Based Strategy," Journal of the China Federation of Logistics, 2021, 28, 82–85, Nanjing

  14. "Survey on the Ageing Society in Rural Guannan: Consumption, Social Security, and Manufacturing for Silver-Hair Economy," with Y Gu, and Y Wang, advised by Prof Qifei Chen, 2020, Guannan

Employment and Professional Experience

  • Fudan University (Shanghai), Research Associate, 2025 – Present

  • Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (Shanghai), Research Assistant, 2024 – Present

  • PLoS One (Public Library of Science), Heliyon (Cell Press), Journal of Infrastructure Policy and Development (EnPress), World Development Sustainability (Elsevier), Journal of Chinese Governance (Taylor & Francis), Peer Review, 2024 – 2025

  • Nanjing University Department of Finance (Pukou, Nanjing), Research Tutor on Economics of Social Security (5023020068), 2023 – 2025

  • DKU (Kunshan, Suzhou), 2023

  • Deloitte (Industrial Park, Suzhou), 2021

  • Mazars (Industrial Park, Suzhou), 2021

  • CITIC (Kunshan, Suzhou), 2020

Programme and Competition Experience

    Mar. 2025 – Present  Co-Investigator and Research Associate, Think Tank Programme, Innovation Policy, Connectivity, and Corporate Change (L20250319)
    Supervised by Dr Li Liu, Fudan Development Institute

    Oct. 2024 – Present  Co-Investigator and Research Assistant, Independent Programme, Urban Development Economics of High-Speed Railway New Town Planning (Z20250301)
    Advised by Dr Yi Zhu, School of Public Economics & Administration

    Oct. 2022 – Jun. 2024  Co-Investigator and Research Associate, National Social Science Fund of China Programme, Optimisation of Industrial Ecosystems for Advanced Manufacturing Clusters Based on Producer Services (19BJY109)
    Supervised by Prof Yabei Hu, School of International Economics & Business

    May 2020 – Nov. 2020  Research Assistant, Jiangsu Administration for Market Regulation Programme, Customer Satisfaction Evaluation of Tertiary Sector
    Supervised by Prof Yingbao Huo, School of Business Administration