Welcome! I'm Wenwei Peng (彭文威), a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Economics of Harvard University. I received my Ph.D. from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2023.

My research interests lie at the intersection of political economy, law and economics, and development economics. One major strand of my agenda tries to understand how key actors in the judiciary (i.e., judges and lawyers) and institutional changes shape judicial outcomes, and in turn, broader economic and societal outcomes.  Beyond the judiciary, I am also interested in how other state actors and governance mechanisms shape political and economic outcomes. 

Methodologically, I am an empirical microeconomist. I apply quasi-experimental methods to novel datasets that I construct from large-scale administrative records, text, and images using machine learning techniques.

For more details, please see my Curriculum Vitae and  Google Scholar Page.

I am on the 2025-26 job market and available for interviews.

You can contact me via wenwei_peng@fas.harvard.edu or junpengwenwei@gmail.com