Publications
Does Pollution Prevention Enhance Firm Efficiency? Insights from US Manufacturing Firms (with Sumaya Falak Memon and Subal Kumbhakar) (International Journal of Industrial Organization, 107, August, 2026)
Under-Identification of Structural Models based on Timing and Information Set Assumptions (with Daniel Ackerberg, Garth Frazer, Kyoo il Kim, and Yao Luo) (Journal of Econometrics, 237(1), November, 2023) (Working paper version, June 2022)
Ownership and Productivity in Vertically-Integrated Firms: Evidence from the Chinese Steel Industry (with Loren Brandt, Feitao Jiang and Yao Luo) (The Review of Economics and Statistics, 104 (1): 101–115, 2022) [Online Appendix] [Featured in VoxChina]
A Robust Approach to Estimating Production Functions: Replication of the ACF Procedure (with Kyoo il Kim and Yao Luo) (Journal of Applied Econometrics, 34(4), 612-619, 2019)
Working Papers
Geography of Market Power: Evidence from the Chinese Steel Industry (with Loren Brandt, Feitao Jiang, Yao Luo) [Featured in VoxChina]
Capital-Moment Informativeness and Weak Identification in Production Function Estimation (with Kyoo il Kim and Yao Luo)
Stata Package: Economically Motivated Penalization Estimator of Production Functions [klsemp.ado][example code]
We provide a Stata implementation of the economically motivated penalization estimator developed in this paper for the Ackerberg–Caves–Frazer (ACF) production function framework. The package includes the estimation routines, sample data and example code to facilitate empirical applications.
Environmental Regulation and Within-Firm Adjustment: Evidence from Chinese Steel (with Pan Chen and Feitao Jiang) (Draft available upon request)
Abstract: Firms can comply with environmental regulation by changing how they produce or controlling pollution after it is generated, yet production adjustments are rarely observed directly. This paper examines how firms respond along these two margins. Using annual stage-level production data alongside environmental and financial records for Chinese steel firms, we exploit cross-city variation in regulatory pressure under China’s 2016–2020 Good-Air Days targets in a difference-in-differences design. We find that firms facing greater pressure adjust along both margins. A one-standard-deviation increase in target intensity reduces pig iron per ton of crude steel by 2.4% of its mean, implying a 2.2-percentage-point increase in the converter scrap share. This adjustment is consistent with substituting scrap for pig iron, thereby reducing reliance on sulfur-intensive sintering. Environmental investment also rises by approximately 116 million CNY, concentrated in air-pollution control and cities subject to overlapping winter regulations. Reported SO2 emissions do not capture the production adjustment because most sintering SO2 was already controlled before the policy. Firms facing greater pressure do not experience lower profitability. These findings highlight that emissions and financial outcomes alone canno reveal how firms adjust to environmental regulation.
Work in Progress
Vehicle Emission Standard and Air Pollution: Evidence from China (with Jieqi Cai, Yakai Yao, Zhe Yuan) (Draft coming soon)
Pollution Prevention or Green Innovation? Unraveling Firms’ Environmental Choices (with Sumaya Memon and Wenya Wang) (Draft coming soon)
Capacity Investment Under Demand Uncertainty: Evidence from the Chinese Steel Industry (with Loren Brandt, Feitao Jiang, Yao Luo)