Working Papers
"High-Value Work and the Rise of Women: The Cotton Revolution and Gender Equality in China" [SSRN]
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Media Coverage: INET, Dissenter, Faculti, Aeon, Economics Detective, BBC Radio 4
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Selected Presentations: Chicago Booth, LSE, Northwestern, NYU Stern, Toulouse, SITE 2023, Barcelona GSE, BREAD/CEPR/STICERD/TCD Conference on Development Economics, IZA/SOLETransatlantic Meeting for Labor Economics
"Autocratic Rule and Social Capital: Evidence from Imperial China" [SSRN]
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Media Coverage: VoxDev, ChinaEconTalk, Penn's Exchange, Lipton Matthews,
Quantitative History Blog, Washington Post
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Selected Presentations: Bonn, Chicago Harris, Yale, NBER Organizational Economics, NBER Summer Institute, Barcelona GSE
"The Short- and Long-Run Effects of Affirmative Action: Evidence from Imperial China," with B. Zhang [SSRN] [CEPR]
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Media Coverage: The Long Run Blog
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Selected Presentations: Penn, Notre Dame, Oxford, UCL, POLECONUK, NBER Economics of Culture and Institutions, BSE Summer Forum, Northwestern New Economic History of China Conference, ASSA 2017/2022
"Values of China: Toward a Cultural Map" [SSRN]
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Selected Presentations: AMSE, Helsinki GSE, Utrecht, PKU INSE, Harvard Workshop on Historical Kinship (2023), Psychology, and Economic Prosperity, KCL Workshop in Comparative Politics & Political Economy (2024), BSE Summer Forum
"Enlightenment Under Autocracy: The Origins of Liberalism in China," with X. Luo
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Selected Presentations: UChicago History and Theory of Capitalism Workshop, Durham, Queen's University Belfast, CEPR Economic History Symposium 2025, EHS 2024
Selected Work in Progress
"Women and Asylums" (draft coming soon)
"British Industrialization and Cultural Change: Evidence from the Use of Proverbs," with E. Ash (first draft completed)
"History as Evolution: The Case of China"
“Raising Dragons,” with J. Nye.
"Violence and Missing Women in China," with T. Sng and S. Zhong
Publications
"Folklore," with S. Michalopoulos
Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 2021, 136 (4), 1993–2046.
Editor's Choice PDF Appendix Slides Data
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Media Coverage: Broadstreet, GrowthChat, Impactful Research, Policy Implications, Barron's, EnDevEcon, Boston Globe, Development Impact, LSE Economic History
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Selected Presentations: Bonn, LEAP, NES, Northwestern, Nottingham, Pompeu Fabra, Toulouse, WEHC 2018, ASREC 2019
Explorations in Economic History, 63 (2017): 44-69. PDF Slides
Book Reviews & Book Chapters
Book Review for "D. Ma and R. Von Glahn, The Cambridge Economic History of China. Volume II," Economic History Review, 76 (2023): 989-990. PDF
"Folklore," In: Kurtz, L.R. (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict, vol. 4. Academic Press, 2022. PDF
Economic History Review, 73 (2020): 335-336. PDF