Publications:

The Impact of Environmental Regulation on Firms' Product Quality: Evidence from Chinese Exporters. Environmental and Resource Economics, 2023.

• Abstract: This paper explores the effects of wastewater regulations on export product quality using disaggregated firm-product level data from China. Applying a difference-in-differences method, I find export product quality improved by 4.8%. The effects vary across heterogeneous firms and also optimize trade patterns. Decomposing the effects shows that intensive and extensive margins contribute equally to improving product quality. Analyzing the underlying mechanisms suggests that the effects can be attributed to updates in firms' technology resulting from adopting advanced machinery and equipment. Additionally, the regulation does not reduce firms' competitiveness despite rising production costs and declining labor demand.

• Best Second Year Paper Award.

• Providing a new thought to merge the Chinese-Customs Trade Statistics (CCTS) database and the Chinese Annual Survey of Industrial Firms (CASIF) database.

The Effects of Environmental Regulations on Performance of Firms with Heterogeneous Resilience. With Liang Chen and Melissa Rui Wan. Canadian Journal of Economics, 2026. 

• • • A dynamic general equilibrium model with credit constraints shows how financial resilience shapes which firms survive stricter environmental regulation.

    • Stricter standards trigger a cleansing effect: the least productive firms exit, while resilient incumbents gain pricing power and profitability even as output and employment contract.

    • Evidence from China's wastewater discharge standards confirms that the burden falls hardest on financially constrained firms.

Working Papers:

1. Leverage Adjustments to Environmental Regulation. With Chi Man Yip, Yuting Feng, and Feng Wei. (Revise & Resubmit, 2nd round, Journal of Empirical Finance)

2. The Double Edge of Connectivity: Infrastructure and the Geography of Quality Upgrading.

3. Expressway Expansion, International Trade, and Spatial Imbalance. With Xiaoying Wang.

4. The Third-Country Impact of the US-China Trade War on Vietnamese Firms: A Global Value Chain Perspective. With Richard Beason, Runjuan Liu, and Phuong Thao Nguyen.

5. The Missing Technique Effect: Expressway Expansion and Industrial Water Pollution in China. With Dana Andersen.

6. Domestic Transport Costs and the Margins of Importing: Evidence from China's Expressway Expansion.