I am interested in Chinese economy, behavioural economics, cultural economics, and development economics. The following are my course papers and reports I wrote during my B.Sc., and M.A. at the University of British Columnbia.
Restrain or Sustain? Evaluating Restraint Commitment Contracts in Productivity-Driven Work (with Campbell, Li, Lu, Shen, and Wall) (2025)
While extensive research has explored how employers use commitment contracts to ensure productivity, much less attention has been given to restrained commitment contracts—those designed to ensure adequate quantity and quality of rest. In this presentation of our research proposal, we carefully outline the research objectives, survey design, statistical methodology, and budget estimation.
Vector-Autoregressions (with Li and Shen) (2025)
This report presents the results of a Vector Autoregressions (VARs) analysis conducted using Canadianmacroeconomic quarterly data ranging from 2004 to 2024, with a specific focus during the Financial Crisisand COVID period when the monetary shock of target interest rate increase is relatively salient. Usingthe impact restriction identification strategy, assuming that the impact is only short-run, we explorethe dynamic relationships between the Canadian target interest rate and key economic indicators. Theprimary focus is on impulse response functions (IRFs), which illustrate the impact of the target rate shockon economic indicators over time. As shown in Figure 1, the model we built based on these changes mayinclude some noise as some major events happened during the period, for example, the Russia-UkraineWar. But we exclude the impact of the war as it is more of an international relationship issue ratherthan a monetary shock. In addition, the middle period shows minor variation, meaning that a highermax lag may lead to convergence in the result. Therefore, we include a robustness test in our researchto check the accuracy of our result.
The Long-Term effects of China's One-Child Policy (with Li) (2024)
We analyze the Long-term effect of China’s One-Child Policy (OCP) from the window from 2003 to 2020 when the first wave of only children has grown up and formed a family. With Regression Discontinuity Design to construct a counterfactual, we document that the stricter OCP will lead to a dramatic drop of divorce cases by almost 30 thousand and CPI in 2004 value by almost 5, along with a jump of the share of the secondary sector in GDP by 13% and house price growth rate by more than 100%. A placebo analysis of the Two-Child Policy verifies that the result is uniquely caused by the OCP.
Meyer (2019) used regression discontinuity design to establish the causal impact of the in power party on constituents’ global warming beliefs. He shows that relative to the election of the Democratic, the win of the Republican significantly drops the probability of a Republican constituent believing in global warming by around 11 to 15 percentage points. My replicate study shows identical results after adjusting for masspoints and covariance-variance computation in the same package that Meyer used.
Isaksen and Richter (2019) thoroughly analyse the effectiveness and enabling conditions of Private Property Rights (PPRs) in mitigating common pool fishery resources collapse. The finding is more accurate relative to previous studies, but some improvements are necessary. In the referee report, I critically assess the paper from various aspects. I pointed out their insufficient robustness check, heterogenous average treatment effect in their two-way fixed-effect difference-in-difference model, and the violation of first stage and exclusion restriction in their instrument variable strategy.
Perspectives: Nighttime Light and Economic Development (with Du, Frey, & Haryanto) (2024)
In this essay, we provide valuable perspectives on the remotely sensed Nighttime Light (NTL) by introducing the context, presenting technological backgrounds, reviewing current literatures, exhibiting outstanding case studies, and pointing out unanswered questions as long as guiding future directions.
Monitoring, Evaluating, and Learning: Empowerment Somalia Women (with Tang & Arora) (2023)
In the Monitoring, Evaluating and Learning (MEL) report, Tang, Arora and I carefully and critically analyse "Rajo Kabaa", a woman literacy & numeracy improvement project, from multiple aspects: based on local context, design of project, and impact on share- & stake-holders. At the end, we provide pointed out some fundamental issues of this project and provide clear direction of improvement.
Religiosity and Income - For The Love of Money Is The Root Of All Evil? (2023)
I use the 2021 Census Public Use Microdata File data and regress the log of income against religiosity dummy. After controling for demographic, cultural, education, and geographic characteristics, the result indicates that a robust negative wage premium of -3% of being religious. The Sikh and Jehovah's Witnesses religious groups have largest negative premium of more than -12,000 CAD. Jewish, however, shows a high and positive wage premium, more than +3,000 CAD.
Referee Report: “Institutions, Human Capital, and Development” (2023)
Daron Acemoglu, Francisco Gallego, and James Robinson (2014) re-tests the relationship between human capital, institutions, and development. Albeit sound econometric analysis, the externalities of human capital, when combined with physicals, or expropriation of elites (also human capital), are not mentioned. Also, potential solutions for countries with not-so-ideal institutions but sufficient capital (not necessarily human capital) are not proposed. In the referee report, I analyse this paper based on its objective, relation to literature, main result, misspecification, OVB and potential bias, and positive contribution.
Business Plan: ScooteeFlash (with Han, Xu, and Zhu) (2023)
Four University of British Columbia (UBC) students founded ScooteeFlash to provide a faster and more environmentally friendly transportation plan for UBC students and staff. The company is committed to providing a quick commute around the UBC campus with no extra carbon footprint.
Important Explanatory Variables for Human Development Index (with Shah, Bryden, and Matsuno) (2022)
In this paper we ask why the Human Development Index (HDI) model consists of the variables that it does, and if the model explaining HDI can be improved based on its relative independence with other important varibales, for example, Maternal Mortality Rate.
Lab-grown meat: an underrated alternative (2021)
Meat is considered as a high-quality protein resource, but our increasing appetite for meat has triggered serious issues concerning food security, environmental protection and animal welfare. Lab-grown meat has a strong potential to replace traditional grazing meat and solve these issues, but this option has not yet been paid sufficient attention. In the paper, I analyse the advantages, welfare improvement, and the future concerns.