Research

Working Papers

Understanding Conflict: What China's Warlord Era Tells Us

Abstract: This paper studies the impact of civil conflict on inter-regional economic activity, specifically, trade between provinces and treaty ports, during China’s Warlord Era (1916-1928). Trade with treaty ports was the major channel through which provinces acquired foreign goods, especially advanced industrial products, and thus played an important role in regional industrialization and modernization. Warlords strategically formed or left military factions due to conflict. These changes in military alliances among warlords affected economic connections among the regions they controlled. I show that the trade cost between a province and a treaty port increased significantly when they were controlled by warlords in different military factions. The rise in trade costs led to increases in prices of foreign goods in local markets. Using the 1917 Russian Revolution as an exogenous supply shock, I show that the demand for foreign goods was elastic. Together, the results imply that conflict reduced the local demand for foreign goods substantially, which had a profound impact on regional development. Moreover, the impact of conflict varied across regions due to heterogeneities in treaty ports and demand elasticities, which provides insights into the observed regional disparities during the Warlord Era.

Consumers' Activism: the 2021 Xinjiang Cotton Boycott

Abstract: In the summer of 2019, many companies associated with the Better Cotton Initiative issued statements expressing concern about forced labor in Xinjiang areas. Months later, these statements spread across Chinese social media and drew public attention. Under the influence of posts by government social media accounts, Chinese consumers believed these accusations were irresponsible and disrespectful, and they began to boycott the companies that issued these statements. Using the firm-level regional sales data and the triple-differences approach, I show that the boycott decreased the sales of boycotted firms by 39%, while the boycott accelerated Chinese firms' growth. The negative impact on boycotted firms is further supported by an event study: stock returns of boycotted firms drop significantly by around 10% immediately after the boycott and did not recover days after. These results suggest that consumer activism can be used by the government as a political weapon to indirectly regulate firms. The government does so through undermining targeted companies' reputation for social responsibility. Social media enhances the efficacy of this strategy and helps to address common problems associated with collective action.

Undergraduate Publications

RMSE-minimizing confidence intervals for the binomial parameter [pdf]

with Lawrence M. Leemis and Heather Sasinowska