Youwei Xing

I am a Ph.D. candidate in the John E. Walker Department of Economics at Clemson University. I am on the job market during the 2023-2024 academic year. 

As an applied microeconomist, my areas of interest encompass public economics and economic development from the perspective of economic history. My dissertation studies canals in the context of nineteenth-century New York State. It is structured into three chapters that investigate: (1) the transformative impact of a key infrastructure, the Erie Canal, on the state's economic modernization, (2) the extent to which politicians utilized public infrastructure to achieve rent-seeking objectives, and (3) the costs and benefits of the canal system. One objective of my research is to reinvigorate the economic historian's engagement with canals. On a broader scale, my research agenda seeks to understand how politics and economics interacted in the early stages of modernization.

Primary fields: Public Economics, Economic History

Secondary field: Applied Microeconomics, Growth and Development,

Email: youweix@g.clemson.edu