Research

Publication

Catholicism in Early 20th Century China: a Re-examination (joint with Ningning Ma)

Explorations in Economic History, Volume 98, October 2025 Data is available upon request SSRN version

Working mother's dilemma during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from China (joint with Dandan Zhang and Yaxuan Liu)

China Economic Review, Volume 84, April 2024 CCER Working Paper

Sectarian Competition and the Market Provision of Human Capital (joint with Heyu Xiong)

Journal of Economic History. 2023;83(1):1-44.

Dissertation Summary: Culture, Norms, and Human Capital Accumulation in the American Higher Education History

Journal of Economic History, Vol. 82, No. 2, June 2022, pg. 568-572

头衔获取方式与个人晋升——来自晚清海关的证据（与李嫣然，周建波）中国经济史研究， 2025年第2期， pg.164-181

Title in English: Sources of Traditional Titles and Personal Promotions: Evidence from the Imperial Maritime Customs Service Li Yanran, Zhao Yiling, Zhou Jianbo

Abstract: Using data from the 1910 Service List of the Imperial Maritime Customs Service, this paper examines how different sources of traditional titles—whether acquired by examination (keju), conferment, or purchase—impacted on the staff’s professional performance. The empirical results show that staff holding keju titles generally had lower salaries. This is explained by their disproportional job assignments to writing-based work, such as writer and shupan, which are lower-ranked positions with clear career ceilings. In the mechanism analysis, this paper discusses factors that contribute to the discovered pattern of job assignments, namely the design of the recruitment system, varying ability requirements for different positions, and the adverse selection of keju staff. Our findings highlight a mismatch between traditional education and the emerging professions at the time, providing evidence leading to the inevitable founding of the Customs College and in general, the rise of modern education.

Working Papers

Home Economics and Women's Gateway to Science (joint with Mike Andrews). Submitted

Becoming Co-ed: The Protestant gift to China (joint with Ningning Ma and Se Yan) Revise and Resubmit, Explorations in Economic History

Engineering the Gender Gap: Fall of women in Computer Science (joint with Alejandro Martínez-Marquina)

清代武举选拔标准的变迁——来自《武乡试录》的证据（与徐志浩，谢延兴）Submitted

清代商人组织的时空变迁——基于地方志的数据整理（1644-1911）（与汪欢颜）Submitted

Work in Progress

Salt Trafficking and The Violent Human Capital （joint with Meng Miao and Lei Zhang) slides

Major Grants (PI only)

Peking University Lanyuan Shuyuan Research Grant 北京大学兰园书院学术基金(RMB 100,000) 2023-2024

This grant supported the project on Protestant missions and women's participation in higher education in Republican China. Specifically, it investigates how Protestant missionaries started the trend of educating women in China. Using various college yearbooks, we collected data on 17,973 student enrolled in 31 different colleges between 1928-1936. Additionally, we collected data on 7,089 doctors and 8,005 civil servants in the 1940s, recording their gender, year of birth, and hometown.

For more details on the project, check the working paper "Becoming Co-ed: The Protestant gift to China"

2. Yongyou Foundation Grant 用友基金会商的长城项目(RMB 100,000) 2024-

This grant supported the construction of a database on Chinese merchant organizations during the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). We surveyed 1,475 historical county gazetteers and documented 2,934 merchant organizations. For each entry, whenever available, we recorded the organization’s name, location, year of (re)establishment, founders, founders’ hometowns, and industries involved.

For more details on the database, check the working paper "清代商人组织的时空变迁——基于地方志的数据整理（1644-1911）"

3. National Natural Science Foundation Grant (RMB 300,000) 2026-

This grant supports research into the historical paths of knowledge production and innovation in the modern Western world, with a primary focus on the United States. This project will examine how the U.S achieved its technological predominance: the role of American universities in fostering talent and research, the managerial and organizational innovations of major corporations that enabled large-scale commercialization, and the strategic intervention of the federal government after World War II in directing technical change.

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