Prof. Lei Li holds the Professorship in Economics and Politics of China (Professur für Wirtschaft und Politik Chinas) at the Faculty of Business and Economics and the Faculty of Humanities at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. Before joining the University of Göttingen in 2024, she served as an Assistant Professor (W1) at the University of Mannheim. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from Tsinghua University. She is affiliated with CESifo and IZA.

Her research focuses on the Chinese economy, particularly in the areas of international trade. Her work covers three key topics: trade disputes, including the US-China trade war and the EU-China trade dispute; the impact of globalization on the environment from the perspective of political economy; and labor market consequences of globalization, with an emphasis on skill-biased technological change, human capital accumulation, wage inequality, migration, and agglomeration.