Nobel Prize laureate Robert Lucas, one of the most influential modern economic theorists, was invited to be a honorary professor on Thursday at the prestigious Wuhan University in central China's Hubei Province.

Robert Lucas is the leader of the New Classical school - the "modern" version of the Chicago School.

His introduction of the concept of "rational expectations" in the 1970s helped to decisively bury the Neo-Keynesian orthodoxy and inaugurated a new era of macroeconomics relying on the Neoclassical concept of supply-determined equilibrium, best exemplified in modern "Real Business Cycle" theory.

He also made seminal contributions to the theory of investment, endogenous growth, asset pricing and money.

He is also renowned for the "Lucas Critique" of the use of econometric models for policy purposes. A professor in Chicago, Lucas won the Nobel prize in 1995.