Bio and CV

Dr. Yilan Xu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her fields of interest include consumer economics and finance, urban economics, and environmental economics. Dr. Xu investigates the impact of social and natural environmental factors on household financial decision-making related to housing, credit, insurance, asset allocation, and wealth accumulation. She seeks to characterize mechanisms that can be employed to improve consumer welfare and households’ resilience to climate change, especially for socially and economically disadvantaged groups. Her recent work focuses on how individuals and regions interact with each other in social networks connected by friendship, social media, trade, and travel flow. Her research provides policy implications for consumer financial protection, financial education, disaster communication and mitigation, and neighborhood stability. Her research has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Regional Science and Urban Economics, Journal of Economic Geography, and Social Science and Medicine. She was awarded two Social Security Administration research grants, the American Council on Consumer Interests (ACCI) Consumer Economics Paper Award, and two Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal (FCSRJ) Best Paper Awards. She is an elected member of the Board of Directors of the ACCI, and she has chaired a major multi-state research group (NC 2172 “Behavioral Economics and Financial Decision Making across the Lifespan,” partially funded by the USDA). Dr. Xu received her Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh and her B.A. in Economics with honors from Zhejiang University.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA

Associate Professor, Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, 2019 – present

Assistant Professor, Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, 2012 – 2018

Fellow, Center for Advanced Study, 2017 – 2018

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), MA, USA

Research Economist, 2014 – 2016

University of Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Part-time Instructor, Department of Economics, 2011 – 2012

Teaching Assistant, Department of Economics, 2007 – 2011

Zhejiang University, China

Undergraduate Teaching Assistant, College of Economics, 2006

EDUCATION

Ph.D. in Economics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 2012

B.A. in Economics with honors, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, 2006

Selected Member of Chu Kochen Honors College

Google Sites

Report abuse