Professor

Yun-chien

Chang

        Prof. Yun-chien Chang is Jack G. Clarke Professor in East Asian Law at Cornell Law School and also directs the Clarke Program in East Asian Law & Culture. Before moving to Cornell, he was a Research Professor (now an Affiliated Research Fellow) at Institutum Iurisprudentiae, Academia Sinica, Taiwan and served as the Director of its Empirical Legal Studies Center. He has also served as a visiting professor at New York University, the University of Chicago, St. Gallen University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Haifa University, and Rotterdam Institute of Law and Economics. He has also conducted research at Free University of Berlin, University of Paris II, and University of Tokyo. Prof. Chang is a co-editor of Journal of Empirical Legal Studies and an Associate Reporter on American Law Institute’s Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property. Prof. Chang is President emeritus of Asian Law and Economics Association and a director of the Society for Empirical Legal Studies. 

        His current academic interests focus on economic, empirical and comparative analysis of private law (particularly property law), as well as empirical studies of the judicial system. Prof. Chang has authored and co-authored more than 160 journal articles and book chapters. His English articles have appeared in leading journals around the world, such as Journal of Legal Studies; Journal of Legal Analysis; Journal of Law and Economics; American Law and Economics Review; Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization; Journal of Empirical Legal Studies; Journal of Law and Empirical Analysis, International Review of Law and Economics; European Journal of Law and Economics; European Journal of Empirical Legal Studies; I˙Con; the University of Chicago Law Review; Southern California Law Review; Notre Dame Law Review; Iowa Law Review and Supreme Court Economic Review, among others. 

        His monograph Private Property and Takings Compensation: Theoretical Framework and Empirical Analysis (Edward Elgar, 2013) was a winner of the Scholarly Monograph Award in the Humanities and Social Sciences. His second monograph Property Law: Comparative, Empirical, and Economic Analyses was published in June 2023 and has been widely reviewed, including two book symposia. Prof. Chang is also a co-author of Property and Trust Law in Taiwan (Wolters Kluwer, 2017; 2nd edition, 2022). Moreover, Prof. Chang (co-)edited 4 other books: Empirical Legal Analysis: Assessing the Performance of Legal Institutions (Routledge, 2014),Law and Economics of Possession (Cambridge University Press, 2015), Private Law in China and Taiwan: Economic and Legal Analyses (Cambridge University Press, 2016), and Selection and Decision in Judicial Process Around the World: Empirical Inquires (Cambridge University Press, 2020). 

        He authored 9 books in Chinese published in China and Taiwan, Economic Analysis of Law: A Methodological Primer (Peking University Press, 2023), Compensation for Physical and Regulatory Takings of Land: Theory andPractice (Angle, 2013; 2nd edition, 2020), Economic Analysis of Property Law (Standard Chinese: Angle, 2015; 2nd edition, 2021; simplified Chinese: Peking University Press, 2019), Empirical Legal Studies: Principles, Methods, and Applications (New Sharing, 2019; 2nd edition, 2022), and Interpreting Private Law: A Social Scientific Approach (New Sharing, 2020), and also (co-)edited 3 books: An Empirical Legal Studies International Perspectives (Contemporary China Publishing House, 2024), An Empirical Legal Studies Reader: Domestic Perspectives (The Law Press, 2020), and Empirical Studies of the Judicial Systems 2011 (Institutum Iurisprudentiae, Academia Sinica; 2013).

        Prof. Chang’s academic achievements have led to him being selected as an Academia Sinica Presidential Scholar in 2021–2022, and won him the 2025 and 2019 ALSA Distinguished Article Awards, Academia Sinica Career Development Award in 2017–2021, Outstanding Scholar Award in 2016, Academia Sinica Law Journal Award in 2016 and 2018, the Junior Research Investigators Award in 2015, the Best Poster Prize at 2011 CELS, and several research grants.

        Prof. Chang sits on the editorial board of several leading journals, including Law and Social Inquiry, Journal of Law and Empirical Analysis, European Journal of Law and Economics, among others.

        Prof. Chang received his J.S.D. and LL.M. degrees from New York University School of Law, where he was also a Lederman/Milbank Law and Economics Fellow and a Research Associate at the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, NYU. Prof. Chang earned LL.B. and LL.M. degrees at National Taiwan University and passed the Taiwan bar. Prof. Chang has had working and consulting experience with prestigious law firms in Taiwan and has served as a legal assistant for the International Trade Commission.