Jheng Shao-Yu (鄭紹鈺)
I am currently predoctoral research fellow at Harvard University's Economic Department with Prof. Melissa Dell
Topics: (i) (rapid) industrialization and premature deindustrialization, (ii) state capacity and industrial policy, (iii) institutions, (iv) USA's aid policy toward the Republican China and postwar Taiwan.
Fields: Industrial Organization, Development, Economic History, Political Economy
Papers
“Property Rights in a Weak State: Evidence from Land Pawning in Qing Taiwan (1683-1895)," with Hui-wen Koo, and Kun-jung Wu. Asia-Pacific Economic History Review, forthcoming.
Quantifying Character Similarity with Vision Transformers, with Xinmei Yang, Abhishek Arora , and Melissa Dell, working paper.
Linking Representations with Multimodal Contrastive Learning, with Abhishek Arora, Xinmei Yang, and Melissa Dell, working paper. (arxiv link)
"Inclusive Origins of Rapid Industrialization: the Persistent Effects of the Colonial Bank Networks on Taiwan’s Economic Miracle" with Ching-I Huang (2021), working paper (SSRN link). Under major revision.
(previous title: Inclusive Institutions, Capital Formation, and Origins of Rapid Industrialization : Evidence from the Colonial Commercial Bank Networks in Taiwan,")"The Conflict between Two Sides of the Himalayan Hump: Competition of USA Lend-Lease Resources between Battlefields in Burma and Mainland China (1942-1945)", (in Chinese, with the title "駝峰兩面之爭議 :美國對華租借物資在緬甸戰場與中國戰場的競爭 (1942-1945)"), accepted and will be published in 《中國遠征軍系列叢書:戰爭宣傳與外交角力》
Presentation /Conferences
• 2023.05.26 UC San Diego China Research Workshop, at 21st Century China Center.
• 2023.03.24 Harvard Economic History Workshop (Topic:Social Network and Industrial Policy in Colonial Taiwan).
• 2023.03.22 Harvard Political Economy Tea (Topic: O-ring Structural Transformation of Postwar Japan).
• 2023.02.03 Alberto Alesina Grad Student Workshop in PE and Culture at Harvard (Topic: Social Network and Industrial Policy in Colonial
Taiwan).
• 2022-2023 Harvard Econ 2924 (Topics: Dee learning for remote sensing, audio data, ControlNet, and NLP for language change.)
• 2022.11.30 Harvard Political Economy Tea (Topic: Taiwan’s Sugar Imperialism).
• 2022.11.04 University of Houston Econ Brown Bag.
• 2022.1011. Cambridge Chinese Politics Workshop (at Harvard).
• 2022.07.15 IEAS Brown Bag at Academia Sinica (Taiwan).
• 2021.09.30: Applied Economics Workshop (selected by Professor Benjamin Olken at MIT).
• 2021.06.25-27: Asian Meeting of the Econometric Society (AMES).
• 2021.04.30-05.02: The 19th Annual International Industrial Organization Conference (IIOC).
• 2021.03.05: Seminar on Network Economics at RCHSS, Academia Sinica (Taiwan).
• 2020.11.06: Conference on Industrial Economics at RCHSS, Academia Sinica (Taiwan).
• 2020.04.09: Econ History Seminar at NTU.
Education
M.A., Economics, National Taiwan University, June 2020.
B.A., Foreign Languages and Literatures (major) , and Economics(minor), National Taiwan University, June 2017.
Referee Service
-Journal of Political Economy
Experience
*Predoctoral Research Fellow at Harvard Economics
-for Melissa Dell, Aug 2022 -present.
*Full-time Research Assistant
-for Ching-I Haung, Sept 2020 - July 2022.
*Part-time Research Assistant (during my M.A. degree)
- for Ching-I Huang: (1) reviewing literatures on control-function approach to estimating production function, empirical game theory and spatial competition, BLP-related methods, as well as empirical IO and banking ; (2) cleaning Industrial Censuses in postwar Taiwan( 1976, 1981, 1986, 1991, 1996, 2001).
- for Eunbi Ko: working on SIPP1996 and other U.S. labor data released by BLS.
- for Elliott Fan: working on administrative data in Taiwan, including health care, domestic violence, and, mainly, sexual assaults.
- for Hui-wen Koo: (1) working on historical data in Taiwan (with other RAs we manually (and brutally) coded more than 10,000 ancient land contracts written in classical Chinese...) ; (2) replicating empirical studies using spatial regression discontinuity design.
*Teaching Assistant
-Introduction to Quantitative Method (NTU Econ Math Camp), 2018 & 2019.
Programming Languages:
Python, R, STATA
Selected Courses (Econ and Math)
-Real Analysis I / Real Analysis II (Baby Rudin Level): A/A
-Empirical IO/ Empirical Game Theory: A+/A+
-Behavioral Game Theory/ Topics in Neuroeconomics: A/A+
-Topics in Monetary Economics: A+
-Law and Economics (taught at NTU Law School):A+
Selected Course (Foreign Languages and Literatures)
-English Writing: English Composition (I)(1&2), English Composition (II)(1&2), and English Composition (Ⅲ)(1&2) (totally 6 semesters)
-British Literature: (1)Twentieth-century, (2) Victorian, (3) Seventeenth-century and Eighteenth-century, (4) Sixteenth-century, (5) Arthurian Literature (including Geoffrey of Monmouth's The History of the Kings of Britain).
-Post-colonial Literature : Fiction(I) (II) [covering Coetzee (South Africa), Soyinka (Nigeria), Djebar (Algeria), Vassanji (Kenya) , Ondaatje (Sri Lanka), Hagedorn (Philippines), Arundhati Roy (India), Wu Chuo-liu (Taiwan), Konrad (Congo, covered but not taught in lectures), Márquez ( Colombia, covered but not taught in lectures), etc.]
-Others: (1) Introduction to Linguistics(I)( II), (2) Readings in Greek Tragedy[covering the Oresteia (focusing on Agamemnon), Ajax, and the Bacchae], (3)Early Travel Literature [covering Topographia Hibernica, Crusaders, Christian missionaries in China and Mongol empire, and early publications on the Age of Discovery].
Selected Course (Chinese History)
-China in Modern Times:1842 -1911 /1911-1979
-Chinese Revolution, Counter-revolution and Modernities in the 1930s
[a PhD-level history course aiming at collecting and reading historical documents and publications during the early 1930s to produce new historical explanations for the formation of both Nanking government and Chinese Communist Party.]
-Sino-Japanese War, State Building and Chinese Revolution(I)(II)
[a PhD-level history course aiming at collecting and reading historical documents and publications on the effects of Sino-Japanese War and the formation of three Chinese states: Republic of China (ROC), the Wang Jingwei regime, and the People's Republic of China (PRC).]
-War, Revolution and Modernity
[a PhD-level history course, covering important works of historical sociology and its implications on modern Chinese history, e.g. Marx, Lenin, debates between Trotsky and Stalin, and later, Weber, Richard Towney, Karl Polanyi, Barrington Moore Jr., Skocpol, Jack Goldstone, and Tilly.]
-Study Group of Chiang Kai-Shek' s Chronological Event Transcripts and Chiang Kai-Shek's Diaries (An extra course derived from Sino-Japanese War, State Building and Chinese Revolution, no credits)
Work Experience (Non-Academic)
*Aleees International Groups
Social Media Editor, Sept 2013-Sept2015
-managed the company's social media and promoted the uptake of electronic vehicles among the general public.
*Taiwan Youth Climate Coalition (TWYCC)
Chief Coordinator of Fundraising Department , Mar 2012 – Oct2013
--persuaded CEOs in private companies to be long-term sponsors
NGO Watcher in Rio+20 , June 2012
--participated in Rio+20 held at Brazil as a NGO member and jointly campaigned for global sustainable development See media coverage posted (in Chinese) in Department of NGO International Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China (Taiwan) and other Chinese medias: here, and English interview of our team: here.
Awards/ Scholarships:
Yuanta Foundation Scholarship (media coverage, in Chinese) , Asia Bank Scholarship