Research
Publications:
"Religiosity and Financial Distress of the Young", (with Weijie Lu, Geng Niu, Yang Zhou), Journal of Banking and Finance (2024), vol. 168, 107276 [paper]
"Child Gender and Subjective Well-being of Older Parents in China", (with Fengyu Wu and Yiming Xia), Journal of Happiness Studies (2023), vol. 24, 2473–2497 [paper] GLO discussion paper
"Better Educated Children, Better Internet-Connected Elderly Parents", (with Dandan Yu and Yang Zhou), Research Policy (2023), vol. 52, 104743 [paper]
Selected working papers :
"Child education and parental healthcare utilization: The roles of knowledge transfer and financial support", with Lingyan Hu, Arthur van Soest, and Yi Zhang, 2022 Netspar discussion paper
"Social Collateral and Informal Loans: Evidence from Chinese Households", with Zilong Niu, 2022
This paper estimates the long-run effects of informal childcare, provided by grandparents, and formal childcare, provided by kindergarten, on human capital outcomes in China. Using data on childcare choice in early childhood, I find that both types of childcare lead to higher educational attainment and better job outcomes. Moreover, the effect of grandparental childcare is stronger for girls, consistent with the son preference. I also find evidence that the kindergarten effect on human capital accumulation is caused by increased maternal labor income and decreased family size. My findings highlight the important role of grandparents and public childcare for children in under-developed areas.
"The Spillover Effect of Sibling Education on Own Education and Health in China", 2019 SSRN Ph.D. thesis chapter 4
This paper studies the spillover effect of sibling's education on one's education, health, and health behavior. I use the introduction of compulsory schooling law around 1986 in China as an exogenous variation in sibling's years of schooling, of which the policy effect varies across children born in separate calendar years. I find positive sibling spillover in education, while the effect is larger from older to a younger sibling than vice versa. I also find positive spillovers in health and health behavior. The heterogeneity analysis provides suggestive evidence to support the mechanisms through sibling interaction and health information transmission, other than only through the positive spillover in education. This non-negligible externality of education policy suggests using education policy as an instrument to improve population health is more effective than we used to think.
"The Effect of Expected Fertility on Female Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from a Birth Quota Change in China" with Arthur van Soest, 2017 Ph.D. thesis chapter 3
This paper exploits a family plan policy change in December 2013, which allowed couples in which either side is an only child to have two children without any penalty. Using a Difference-in-Difference setting and individual-level data collected in 2010, 2012 and 2014, we investigate how prime-age married women affected by the policy changed their labor market decision in three dimensions: labor market participation, working hours and monthly earnings. We find that the policy increased the monthly labor supply of treated women by 15 hours, while it had no significant effect on the monthly wage. We find no effects of the policy change for women in the agricultural sector, self-employed women, or male workers. Furthermore, women having the first child at a later age, a longer tenure on the job, or working in a state-owned enterprise experienced smaller effects. The policy impact did not vary with the women's desired numbers of children, a variable that is usually unknown to the employer. All the above evidence suggests that employers use observable productivity-related characteristics to screen women, expecting that those who are more likely to have kids after the policy change will invest less in their job.