Working papers
"The Short- and Long-Run Effects of Affirmative Action: Evidence from Imperial China," with B. Zhang [SSRN] [CEPR dp]
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Media Coverage: The Long Run Blog
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Selected Presentations: Oxford, UCL, Penn, Notre Dame, POLECONUK, STEG, Barcelona GSE, NBER Economics of Culture and Institutions, Northwestern New Economic History of China Conference
"High-Value Work and the Rise of Women: The Cotton Revolution and Gender Equality in China" [SSRN] [Dissertation]
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Media Coverage: INET, Dissenter, Faculti, Aeon, Economics Detective, BBC Radio 4, Yale EGC
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Selected Presentations: Chicago Booth, Northwestern, NYU Stern, LSE, Toulouse, Barcelona GSE, SITE
"Chaste Widowhood" [CEPR dp]
"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: Chicago Harris, Yale, UC San Diego, Bonn, NBER Organizational Economics
"Enlightenment Under Autocracy: The Intellectual Origins of Liberalism in China," with X. Luo [SSRN]
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Selected Presentations: Stanford, Yale, Michigan, Durham, QUBelfast, Paris Public Governance Workshop, CEPR Economic History Symposium, UChicago-Beijing Political Economy of Governance Conference.
"Values of China: Toward a Cultural Map" [SSRN]
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Selected Presentations: Toronto, UCLA Anderson, Purdue, Helsinki GSE, AMSE, Utrecht, CESifo Venice Summer Institute, NBER Chinese Economy, KCL Comparative Politic & Political Economy Workshop
"History as Evolution: The Case of China" [SSRN]
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Selected Presentations: EHA 2025, LSE History of Economics Workshop
Selected work in progress
"Women and Asylums" (first draft completed)
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Selected Presentations: Yale, UCLA, UBC, NYU Stern, Warwick, St Andrews, York, Trinity College Dublin, HU Berlin
"British Industrialization and Cultural Change: Evidence from the Use of Proverbs," with E. Ash (first draft completed)
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Selected Presentations: Harvard, Northwestern, PSE, Sciences Po, Bristol, Glasgow, Sussex, ASSA 2024
"Violence and Missing Women in China," with T. Sng and S. Zhong
“Raising Dragons,” with J. Nye.
"Lunacy in Nineteenth-Century England: Trends and Determinants"
Book Project
"Values of China: The Cultural Foundations of Economic Transformation" (Under contract)
Publications
Articles
“Crowd-Sourced Chinese Genealogies as Data for Demographic and Economic History”
Explorations in Economic History, Volume 99, January 2026. PDF Replication files
"Folklore," with S. Michalopoulos
Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 136, Issue 4, November 2021, pp. 1993–2046.
Editor's Choice PDF Appendix Slides Replication files
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Media Coverage: Broadstreet, GrowthChat, Impactful Research, Policy Implications, Barrons, EnDevEcon, Boston Globe, Development Impact, LSE Economic History Blog
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Selected Presentations: Bonn, Northwestern, Nottingham, Pompeu Fabra, Toulouse
Explorations in Economic History, Volume 63, January 2017, pp. 44–69. PDF Slides
Other publications
"Predecessors to Qing Fiscal Conservatism: From Wang Yangming to Huang Zongxi and Gu Yanwu"
Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities, Vol. 36, No. 4, 2026 (Symposium on the Ideological Foundations of Qing Taxation). PDF
Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict, 3rd Edition, Academic Press, 2022. (Invited Reference) PDF
Book reviews
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
Economic History Review, 73 (2020): 335-336. PDF