Assistant Professor of Economics Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB) Research Interests Political Economy, Economic History, Organizational Economics [email protected] 10/F, No. 125 Guangqumennei Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing, China |
Curriculum Vitae [PDF]
3 Research Themes - Self-enforcing social order amid power struggles and personnel fights - Power succession and transition in dynasties and family businesses - Economic origins of social, cultural, and gender norms Publications 6. The Promotion Club (with Shuo Chen and Zhitao Zhu) [PDF] Public Choice, 2026, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-026-01422-5 Club-based promotions facilitate leaders' discretion without distorting incentives. 5. Starving and Deceiving? How Disasters Reshape Politicians' Incentives to Lie (with Shuo Chen and Xuanyi Wang) [PDF] Public Choice, 2025, 204: pp.287-306 The victims of lies are more reluctant to lie when serving in public offices. 4. The Shaping of A Gender Norm: Marriage, Labor, and Foot-binding in Historical China (with Lingwei Wu) [Link] [SSRN] UniCredit Foundation - Best Paper Award on Gender Economics 10th International Economic Review, 2023, Vol. 64: pp. 1819-1850. Detrimental gender norms can be traced back to unequal access to social mobility. 3. Competence-Loyalty Tradeoff under Dominant Minority Rule: The Case of Manchu Rule 1650-1911 (with Shuo Chen, L. Colin Xu, and Xun Yan) [Link] [SSRN] Journal of Public Economics, 2023, Vol. 200: 104843 Dominant minority adopted cross-ethnic personnel combos for loyalty & efficiency. 2. Warcraft: Legitimacy Building of Usurpers (with Shuo Chen) [PDF] [Link] Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2021, Vol. 184, pp. 409-431 Usurpers initiated more wars than hereditary rulers for more aggressive legitimization. 1. Strategic Promotion, Reputation, and Responsiveness in Bureaucratic Hierarchies (with Feng Yang) [PDF] [Link] Journal of Theoretical Politics, 2019, 31(3), pp. 286-307 Mid-tier manager deterred staffs' promotion to shift blames when boss is watching. Selected Working Papers 6. The Long Silver Lining: How Contracted Birth Cohorts Reshape Women's Socioeconomic Status (with Zhihao Xu, Yiran Xie, and Zhenyu Luo) Famine-exposed women had improved pre-college education and transitioned to non-agricultural jobs, while their daughters carried the gains to college and high-skill jobs. 5. Reason for Treason (with Gary Richardson, Zhihao Xu, and Sicheng Zhao) [NBER] NBER Working Paper 35069 Internal organizational under-recognition and promising external career prospects incentivize military officers to defect to their enemies. 4. Captain on the Bridge: Corporate Restructuring in the U.S.-China Trade War (with Wei Li, and Yi Zhou) Family business leaders in China tended to centralize control and postpone succession during the U.S.-China trade war, and showed strong alignment with the firm. 3. Elite Persistence, Power Struggles and Coalition Dynamics [SSRN] Why do revolutions that aim to install social equality often quickly reproduce the same type of hierarchies that the revolutionaries sought to destroy? 2. Noble No More: Elite Recruitment, Checks and Balances, and Political Purges (with Shuo Chen, and Zhichen Huang) [SSRN] When Keju recruited commoner-born elites in bureaucracy, it erased power checks from nobility, and cultivated an absolutist rule where no one was safe from extralegal purges. 1. Godfather Politicians and Organized Violence (with Shuo Chen and Yuzheng Wang) [SSRN] A corrupt politician may serve as Godfather to arbitrate local mafia disputes peacefully. When the politician is eradicated, the local power vacuum leads to surges of local violence. Selected Work in Progress 1. Agenda Setting in the Board Room (with Wei Li, and Yi Zhou) Will business leaders strategically exaggerate crisis influence for their private benefits? |