Stephen Roach has been a senior fellow at Yale University since 2010 where he developed new courses on Asia, notably "The Next China" and "The Lessons of Japan." Prior to moving to academia, he spent thirty years at Morgan Stanley, where for the bulk of his career he served as the firm′s chief economist, heading up a highly regarded team of economists around the world.

His recent research has focused on the conflict-prone relationship between the world's two largest economies, which was featured in his 2014 book Unbalanced and in his new book Accidental Conflict. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley in 1982, he worked in senior capacities at Morgan Guaranty Trust Company and the Federal Reserve Board in Washington D.C. He holds a PhD in economics from New York University and was a research fellow at the Brookings Institution.