Research

Working papers

Single by Choice or Rejection? Evidence on Mating Preferences in China. (Job Market Paper) Draft. Under review.

In China, the marriage rate increases with education for men but decreases for women. However, we observe positive assortative matching, as in most countries. This pattern is inconsistent with some simple models of marital matching. If there were strict educational homogamy, highly educated women would have high marriage rates because they would be on the short side of the market. If everyone preferred the most skilled mate, low-education men but not high-education women would have low marriage rates. If women preferred high-skill spouses but men preferred low-skill spouses, we would not observe positive assortative mating.

In this paper, I ask what preferences can explain the observed mating pattern for individuals born between 1972 and 1975 in China. I allow their utility from marrying to depend on their education and their spouse’s education. The utility function allows for a discrete jump and a different slope if the wife’s education exceeds the husband’s. In addition, each person has idiosyncratic preferences for each potential spouse. I assume utility is nontransferable and solve for equilibrium assuming a deferred acceptance algorithm.

I find that women are strongly averse to marrying less-educated men. In contrast, men are rewarded for marrying more-educated wives. The model fits the high single rate among low-educated men and high-educated women. Moreover, when I predict single rates for earlier birth cohorts, I fit the pattern for low-educated men and high-educated women born after 1970 relatively well, but not that for earlier cohorts. This suggests that mating preferences change significantly across generations.

The Impacts of Population Mobility Controls on the Housing Market: Evidence from the 2014 Household Registration Reform in China. Draft.

The household registration system (Hukou system) as a mobility control instrument in China largely restricts individuals’ access to the social welfare system outside their hometown, making it costly and inconvenient for migrants to live long-term in host cities. Without local Hukou, most migrants will not consider purchasing houses where they work. In this paper, I study the effects of the 2014 Hukou reform on housing prices. Using apartment-complex-level housing data, I find that the implementation of the reform increased prices for lower-quality residential properties, while those of higher quality experienced negative shocks. This is consistent with findings in previous literature that more migrant workers move to places where controls are relaxed, spurring demand for basic housing.

Worker Benefits of Rural Urban Migrants in China. Draft.

Despite the rise in rural-urban migration since the 1980s, many migrants in China remain without access to formal worker benefits. Using panel data from the 2008-2009 RUMiC survey, this paper examines how job search methods affect benefit provision among rural-urban migrants. Comparing cross-sectional and fixed effects approaches, I find that apparent negative associations between network job search and formal benefits largely reflect worker selection rather than causal effects. Most relationships disappear when controlling for individual fixed effects, indicating that workers who rely on networks are negatively selected. The exception is pension benefits, where network job search maintains a significant negative effect, suggesting network-based hiring genuinely channels workers into jobs that avoid long-term benefit obligations. These findings reveal that networks primarily matter through selection rather than direct causal effects.

Work in progress

Government Funding, University Innovation on Local Economic Growth,” with Daniel L. Millimet and Shuo Qi

Book chapters

Policy-based Evidence Making, in preparation for Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics, ed. Klaus F. Zimmermann, Springer Nature, with Daniel Millimet and Shuo Qi