On the 2026-2027 Job Market
Postdoctoral Fellow
I am an empirical economist and currently a postdoc at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. I work on Development Economics, Political Economy, and Economic History.
My job market paper studies how son preference spreads across groups and persists across generations. My other work examines how information and economic change shape political preferences and economic behavior.
Prior to Northwestern University, I received my PhD in Economics in 2025 and MA in Economics from the Toulouse School of Economics. I also hold a BBA in Economics from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen.
The Transmission of Son Preference
I study how son preference spreads across groups and persists across generations. I exploit the quasi-random settlement of mainland Chinese migrants in Taiwan and measure their son preference using ancestor worship in their places of origin. After abortion was legalized in 1985, local parents exposed to migrants with stronger son preference became more likely to select for son(s). Greater exposure also strengthens their tendency to continue childbearing when they have no son. Among second-generation migrants, son preference persists through paternal lineage and migrant communities. Transmission within families has a stronger marginal effect, while diffusion to locals accounts for a larger aggregate impact.