My research agenda aims to explain how single-party regimes address challenges in delegating discretionary power to bureaucrats. I argue that regimes weigh the costs & benefits of politicization of bureaucracy as a means of oversight, selection of loyal bureaucrats, and patronage connections. Equally important, I explore the social and institutional consequences of these approaches, for example, how discretionary authority of the state reshapes the state and society relations in single-party autocracies. Empirically, I have developed extensive micro-level policy-document datasets and government-job-opening datasets from China, as well as formal models, to analyze these questions.

My research has received support from various institutions, including DDRIG (Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant) from APSA, Summer Mini-Grant from the BU CISS (Center for Innovation in Social Science), and BU CAS/CISS/Spark!.

Before joining BU, I received a Ph.D. in Economics from Fudan University, Shanghai, China. In my previous doctoral training, I studied the political economy of institutional changes, crime, labor immigration, urban economics, and economic development.