[1] The Public Health Returns to Human Capital and Their Persistence: Evidence from the Withdrawal of Sent-Down Youths in China, with Pinghan Liang, Chuanchuan Zhang, and Junsen Zhang, 2026.
Abstract: This paper studies the public health value of human capital by exploiting the abrupt withdrawal of Sent-Down Youths (SDYs) from rural China around 1980. Using county-level variation in historical SDY intensity in a difference-in-differences design, we find that counties more exposed to the withdrawal experienced a 0.31-percentage-point increase in child mortality (a 6.6\% relative increase from the sample mean). The effect is driven mainly by post-birth deaths and by causes that are relatively preventable or treatable, rather than by congenital conditions. Mechanism analyses point to the disruption of frontline medical services as the main channel: the withdrawal of SDYs reduced the availability of rural doctors, and the mortality effect is concentrated in counties with weaker access to formal medical care and in remote areas where referral to higher-level hospitals was difficult. We also document a buffer effect of local human capital: counties with better educated populations were more able to substitute for the lost skills. These findings show that human capital is not only privately valuable but also a critical input in public health production, particularly in resource-constrained settings.
[1] Marx Meets Weber: The Dissolution of Communes and The Rise of Religious Public Goods in China, with Pinghan Liang, World Development, 2025.
Abstract: cultural behaviors can be shaped and preserved by economic institutions. To investigate this, we examine the causal impact of the rural decollectivization reform in China that took place after 1978 on the supply of one cultural public goods-the religious activities in religious sites. A staggered difference-in-differences model that analyzes the timing of reform implementation in 1,114 counties finds that the reform resulted in a surge in religious activities in religious sites. Further evidence suggests that counties with a less severe exposure to the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and a larger income growth experienced a greater impact of the reform. Moreover, kinship organizations, being more religious and serving as a critical tool in mobilizing individuals, could enhance the impact of the reform. We argue that in the commune system before the reform, the demand for religions was suppressed and the reform increased people's economic autonomy and resources for participating religious activities. These findings demonstrate that economic institutions may shape cultural behaviors in the short term.
[2] Decollectivization and Child Adoption in Rural China, with Pinghan Liang, Economic Development and Cultural Change, 2025.
Abstract: many children are trafficked in developing countries to meet the household demand for children as most trafficked children are finally adopted by households. We exploit the county-by-county rollout of land reform in rural China since 1978 to explore the causal impact of decollectivization on child adoption. The difference-in-differences estimation demonstrates an increase in child adoption by rural sterile households after the reform, coinciding with a surge in child trafficking. Besides, the reform led to a lower adoption probability in urban areas and less children were abandoned after the reform, suggesting that our estimate is not driven by the One-Child policy. Further analysis seems to support that decollectivization raises the value of children by increasing labor demand for old age support and for agricultural production, as well as receiving favorable redistribution of land. This indicates the importance of economic incentives in child adoption in developing countries. Our study offers insights into the rising occurrence of child trafficking after decollectivization reform in 1978 in China.
[3] Pray, Vote, and Money: The Double-edged Sword Effect of Religions on Rural Political Participation in China. With Pinghan Liang. China Economic Review. (2022)
[4] The Effect of Adult’s Migration on the Health of Parents Left Behind (in Chinese). With Xingxiang Wen and Xue Wen. Population & Economics. (2016)
[1] Land acquisition rights and extractive behaviors of government
[2] The social cost of developemnt projects: the cases of High-Speed Railway and Special Economic Zones in China