Early life Yang's family came from
Hekou,
Xiangtan County,
Hunan Province, and he was born in
Dunhua,
Jilin Province. At the time when he was born, Jilin was just taken by the
Fourth Field Army led by
Lin Biao. Yang was later taken to
Changsha,
Hunan and was raised there. Yang's parents were
Chinese Communist Party officials. His parents' status meant that he initially had a privileged life, receiving an excellent education by Chinese standards at the time. Following his study at Princeton, Yang accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at
Yale University. In 1988, he moved to Australia and took up a position as lecturer at
Monash University. His work is founded on the ideal that all persons (potential traders) are
equal in all relevant respects. He moved from this to develop an extensive explanatory apparatus. His work encompasses equilibria that involve more behavioral adjustments than those defined in orthodox neoclassical models of general equilibrium. According to Buchanan, this approach has major implications for a wide range of issues in economics, such as
globalisation, outsourcing, as well as interoccupational and locational mobility. He died on 7 July 2004, survived by his wife, Xiaojuan; and three children, Xiaoxi, James, and Edward. His eventful life is described in his memoir,
Captive Spirits: Prisoners of the Cultural Revolution. == Legacy ==