​​​Working papers​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

"High-Value Work and the Rise of Women: The Cotton Revolution and Gender Equality in China"  [SSRN] [Dissertation] 

• Media Coverage: INET, Dissenter, Faculti, Aeon, Economics Detective, BBC Radio 4, Yale EGC

• Status: Updated November 2025​​​​​​​​​​​​

"Chaste Widowhood" ​[CEPR dp]

• Status: New draft posted August 2026​​​​​​​​​​​​

"The Short- and Long-Run Effects of Affirmative Action: Evidence from Imperial China," with B. Zhang  [SSRN]  [CEPR dp]​

• Media Coverage: The Long Run Blog 

• Status: Updated July 2026 

"Autocratic Rule and Social Capital: Evidence from Imperial China" ​[SSRN]

• Media Coverage: VoxDev, ChinaEconTalk, Penn's Exchange, Lipton Matthews, ​Quantitative History Blog,  Washington Post​​​​​

• Status: Draft updated November 2021

​"Enlightenment Under Autocracy: The Intellectual Origins of Liberalism in China," with X. Luo [SSRN]​

• Status: New draft posted September 2026​​​​​​​​​​​​

"Values of China: Toward a Cultural Map"  ​[SSRN]

• Status: Updated Feburary 2026​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

​"History as Evolution: The Case of China" [SSRN]

• Status: New draft posted May 2026

​

Selected work in progress​​​​​​​​​

"British Industrialization and Cultural Change: Evidence from the Use of Proverbs," with E. Ash (draft coming soon)

• Selected Presentations:  Harvard, Northwestern, PSE, Sciences Po, Bristol, Glasgow, Sussex, ASSA 2024

"Women and Asylums" (first draft completed)

• Selected Presentations: Yale, UCLA, UBC, NYU Stern, Warwick, St Andrews, York, Trinity College Dublin, HU Berlin

"Lunacy in Nineteenth-Century England: Trends and Determinants"

​​

Book Project

"Values of China: The Cultural Foundations of Economic Transformation" (Under contract)

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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 ​​

• ​Media Coverage: Broadstreet, GrowthChat, Impactful Research, Policy Implications, Barrons, EnDevEcon, Boston Globe, Development Impact, LSE Economic History Blog

"Friends from Afar: The Taiping Rebellion, Cultural Proximity and Primary Schooling in the Lower Yangzi,1850-1949," with Y. Hao   

Explorations in Economic History, Volume 63, January 2017, pp. 44–69.  PDF  Slides

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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 

​"Folklore" 

Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict, 3rd Edition, Academic Press, 2022. (Invited Reference)  PDF

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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​​​​​​

Book Review for "M. Tanimoto and R. B. Wong, Public Goods Provision in the Early Modern Economy: Comparative Perspectives from Japan, China, and Europe" 

Economic History Review, 73 (2020): 335-336. PDF