Research
I am primarily interested in studying policy-relevant issues related to health and education. My research seeks to understand the determinants of health and education outcomes, and the effects of health and education policies on these outcomes, by applying quasi-experimental methods to large-scale observational data. My current work focuses on the following inter-related topics:
(i) Mental health: how various factors such as religion, migration, and peers affect mental health, and the role of policy in shaping mental health outcomes;
(ii) Schools: the school inputs and outputs in education and health production, and the roles of various social elements in these processes;
(iii) Health policy: the effectiveness of health policies, the health and healthcare for different demographic groups.
Working papers and works in progress
"The Economic Impact of Heritable Physical Traits: Hot Parents, Rich Kid?" (with Daniel S. Hamermesh)
"Rural-Urban Migration and the Transmission of Culture" (in progress, with Zhongliang Deng, Kai Liu, Xiangqing Liu)
"Peer Effects on Mental Health: Evidence from Random Assignment into Classrooms"
Peer-Reviewed Publications
"Beauty, Underage Drinking, and Adolescent Risky Behaviours" (Colin Green, Luke Wilson), Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 215:153-166, 2023.
"Trends in Psychological Distress in Great Britain, 1991--2019: Evidence from Three Representative Surveys'' (with Thierry Gagne, David Walsh, Alberto Ciancio, Eugenio Proto, and Gerry McCartney), Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 2023.
"Anxiety and Depression among Medical Doctors in Catalonia, Italy, and the UK during the COVID-19 Pandemic" (with Climent Quintana-Domeque, Ines Lee, Eugenio Proto, Michele Battisti, and Antonia Ho), PLOS ONE, 16(11): e0259213, 2021.
Video: 2-minute video summary
Data and code: Healthcare Workers Survey Data and code
Media coverage: Press release Independent News Medical UK News Today Salon
"COVID-19 and Mental Health of Individuals with Different Personalities" (with Eugenio Proto), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(37):e2109282118, 2021. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2109282118
General interest writing: Kudos Economics Observatory
Media coverage: Press release Guardian Yahoo! News (Taiwan) Jerusalem Post
"Patient Choice of Health Care Providers in China: Primary Care Facilities versus Hospitals" (with Zlatko Nikoloski, Sarah Albala, Winnie Yip, Jin Xu, and Elias Mossialos), Health Systems and Reform, 6(1):e1846844, 2020.
"Understanding Health and Social Challenges for Aging and Long-Term Care in China" (with Wei Yang, Bei Wu, Si Ying Tan, Bingqin Li, Vivian W. Q. Lou, Zhuo (Adam) Chen, Xi Chen, James Rupert Fletcher, Ludovico Carrino, Bo Hu, Min Hu, and Yixiao Wang), Research on Ageing, 2020.
"Parental Migration and Self-Reported Health Status of Adolescents in China: A Cross-Sectional Study" (with Weijia Lu and Elias Mossialos), EClinicalMedicine, 20(2020): 100371, 2020.
"Religion and Depression in Adolescence" (with Jane Cooley Fruehwirth and Sriya Iyer), Journal of Political Economy, 127(3): 1178-1209, 2019.
"Self-reported Symptoms of Depression Among Chinese Rural-to-UrbanMigrants and Left-Behind Family Members" (with Zlatko Nikoloski, Gareth Hopkin, and Elias Mossialos), JAMA Network Open, 2(5): e19355, 2019.
"Availability, Cost, and Prescription Patterns of Antihypertensive Medications in Primary Health Care in China: A Nationwide Cross-Sectional Survey'' (with Meng Su, Qiuli Zhang, Xueke Bai, Chaoqun Wu, Yetong Li, Elias Mossialos, George A. Mensah, Frederick A Masoudi, Jiapeng Lu, Xi Li, Sebastian Salas-Vega, Yuan Lu, Khurram Nasir, Harlan M. Krumholz, and Lixin Jiang), The Lancet, 390(10112): 2559-2568, 2017.
"Does Health Insurance Reduce Out-of-Pocket Expenditure? Heterogeneity among China's Middle-Aged and Elderly" (with Zlatko Nikoloski and Elias Mossialos), Social Science & Medicine, 190: 11-19, 2017.
Policy Reports
"Pharmaceutical Policy in China" (with Mackenzie Mills and Panos Kanavos), LSE Consulting, September 2019.
"The Cost of Diabetes in the State of Qatar" (with Zlatko Nikoloski, Ilias Kyriopoulos, and Elias Mossialos), Qatar Ministry of Public Health, August 2017.
"The Economic Burden of Smoking in the State of Qatar" (with Zlatko Nikoloski and Elias Mossialos), Qatar Ministry of Public Health, September 2016.