Xiaodong Chen - Research

[1] JOB MARKET PAPER

The Distributional Incidence of Climate Adaptation: Evidence from Flood-Control Infrastructure

Single-authored · Presented at Bologna (2026), Monash (2024, 2026), HKUST (2024, 2025, 2026), Zhejiang University (2025), and NOVA SBE (2026)

Governments increasingly invest in hard infrastructure to adapt to climate risk, but protection for some locations may impose costs on others. Using geocoded manufacturing firms in China, I study how flood-control dams redistribute the benefits and burdens of flood protection across space. A spatial regression discontinuity design shows that firms just upstream of dams are 27–36 percent less productive than nearby downstream firms. Using matched planned-but-unrealized water-control project sites as counterfactuals, a triple-differences design estimates a 13 percent productivity loss upstream and an implied productivity gain of about 20 percent downstream. Satellite and rainfall evidence supports the proposed mechanism: reservoirs retain inflows after extreme rainfall, short-run surface-water expansion is greater upstream, and downstream firms are less sensitive to upstream rainfall shocks. Upstream firms also hold larger inventories and spend more on property insurance, consistent with costly private buffering. An illustrative fixed-input extrapolation of the matched-project point estimates to post-completion manufacturing activity around all 103 sample dams implies a net annual manufacturing magnitude of about RMB 20 billion, despite concentrated upstream losses. Evaluations that focus only on protected areas therefore miss an important part of the spatial incidence of adaptation, including concentrated losses and private adjustment costs in connected upstream areas.

National Sample

Research Design

Main Result

Satellite Evidence

[2] PUBLICATION · Nature Cities (2026)

Mitigation of Temperature-Induced Vegetable Price Volatility in Urban Wholesale Markets

with Anda Guo and Pengyu Zhu

DOI: 10.1038/s44284-026-00466-4 · Data & Code: Zenodo 15236927

FILES: Article PDF / Online Appendix / Peer Review Reports

Extreme temperatures increase urban vegetable-price volatility. Local self-sufficiency, transport connectivity, cold chains, and shorter supply chains strengthen resilience.

[3] PUBLICATION · Journal of Comparative Economics (2025)

The Impact of Rainfall on Productivity: Implications for Chinese Manufacturing

with Yatang Lin and Pengyu Zhu

DOI: 10.1016/j.jce.2025.03.005

FILES: Article PDF / Supplementary Material (DOCX)

MEDIA: HKUST Public Policy Bulletin

Heavy rainfall lowers manufacturing productivity, especially among labor-intensive, low-technology firms. Labor, agricultural inputs, and transport disruption are key channels.

[4] WORKING PAPER · R&R AT PNAS

Armed Conflicts Undermine Global Ecosystem Carbon Sink by Destroying Vegetation

with Zeng Li and Dingyuan Liang

Links global conflict events to vegetation and ecosystem carbon sinks to measure the environmental cost of armed conflict and its evolution under alternative scenarios.

WORKS IN PROGRESS

[5] Technology Diffusion in China — with Yuqing Guo

[6] Extreme Rainfall, Transportation Disruptions, and Food Price Pass-Through — with Liang Chen and Zeng Li

[7] Conflict, Shipping, and Trade — with Jeremy Jiajing Chen

[8] Incentives to Codify, Limits to Conversion: Place-Based Agricultural Science Parks in China — with Yuqing Guo