Publications
"The Causes of the Ukrainian Famine" (2024) (with Andrei Markevich and Natalya Naumenko). NBER Working Paper 29089. Forthcoming at the Review of Economic Studies.
“The Unintended Consequences of NGO-Provided Aid on Government Services in Uganda" (with Erika Deserranno and Aisha Nansamba) NBER Working Paper No. 26928. (2024) Accepted at The Journal of European Economic Review.
“The Intensifying Effects of Prolonged Climate Change on Conflict, 1400-1900 CE” (with Murat Iyigun and Joris Mueller) American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, Forthcoming.
“Technological Adoption and Taxation: The Case of China’s Golden Tax Reform” with Haichao Fan, Yu Liu and Jaya Wen) (2024) NBER Tax Policy and the Economy, Vol. 38.
“Social Fragmentation, Elections and Public Goods: Evidence from China” (with Gerard Padro-i-Miquel and Yang Yao) (Forthcoming) NBER Working Paper w18633. In Book Chapter for Decentralized Governance: Crafting Effective Democracies Around the World, edited by Sarmistah Pal and Jean-Paul Faguet, LSE Press.
“Stress, Ethnicity and Prosocial Behavior” with Johannes Haushofer, Sara Lowes, Abednego Muse, David Ndetei, Nathan Nunn and Moritz Poll (2022) Accepted at The Journal of Political Economy Micro.
“The Rise and Fall of Local Elections in China: Theory and Empirical Evidence on the Autocrat’s Tradeoff” with Monica Martinez-Bravo, Gerard Padró-i-Miquel and Yang Yao (2021) NBER Working Paper 24032. September, 2022, The American Economic Review, 112(9): p. 2921-58.
“On the Road: Transportation Infrastructure and Economic Growth in China” (with Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo) (2019) NBER Working Paper 17897. Forthcoming at The Journal of Development Economics.
“Immigrants and the Making of America” (with Nathan Nunn and Sandra Sequeira) The Review of Economic Studies, 87(1), January 2020, pp. 382-419. NBER Working Paper 23289.
“Economic Transition and Private-Sector Labor Demand: Evidence from Urban China” (with Lakshmi Iyer, Xin Meng and Xiaoxue Zhao) (2013) NBER Working Paper 19733. Journal of Comparative Economics, 47(3), September 2019, p. 579-600.
“Quantity-Quality and the One Child Policy: The Positive Effect of Family Size on School Enrollment in China” (2017) Forthcoming in Gender and Development, UNU Wider Oxford University Press.
“Lifecycle Human Capital Accumulation Across Countries: Evidence from U.S. Immigrants” with Benjamin Moll, David Lagakos, Tommaso Porzio and Todd Schoellman) (2017) Forthcoming in The Journal of Human Capital. NBER Working Paper 21914.
“Government Distortion in Independently Owned Media: Evidence from U.S. Cold War News Coverage of Human Rights “(with David Yanagizawa-Drott) The Journal of European Economics Association, 15(2), 2017.
“Life Cycle Wage Growth Across Countries” (with Benjamin Moll, David Lagakos, Tommaso Porzio and Todd Schoellman) The Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Political Economy, 126 (2), April 2018, p. 797-849. NBER Working Paper 18602.
“The Institutional Causes of Famine in China, 1959-61” (with Xin Meng and Pierre Yared) The Review of Economic Studies, 82(4), 2015, p. 1568-1611.
“Making Progress on Foreign Aid” The Annual Review of Economics, Vol 7, 2015 August, p. 277-308.
“U.S. Food Aid and Civil Conflict” (with Nathan Nunn) The American Economic Review, 104(6), 2014 June, p. 1630-1666.
“Village Governance in China”, The Oxford Companion to the Economics of China, Ch. 53, Oxford University Press, 2014 November.
“The Determinants of Food Aid Provisions to Africa and the Developing World,” (with Nathan Nunn) African Successes: Sustainable Growth, Vol. 4, University of Chicago Press, 2014 May.
“More Missing Women, Fewer Dying Girls: The Impact of Abortion on Sex Ratios at Birth and Excess Female Mortality in Taiwan” (with Ming-Jen Lin and Jin-Tan Liu) The Journal of European Economic Association, 12(4), 2014 August, p. 899-926. Awarded as “The Excellent Research Paper” by the Taiwan Economic Association in 2018.
“The Impact of Potatoes on Old World Population and Urbanization” (with Nathan Nunn), The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 126(2), May 2011, p. 593-650. Web Appendix.
“The Columbian Exchange: a Historical Change in Food, Disease and Ideas” (with Nathan Nunn) The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 24(2), 2010 Spring, p. 163-188.
“The Strategic Determinants of U.S. Human Rights Reporting: Evidence from the Cold War” (with David Yanagizawa) The Journal of European Economic Association Papers and Proceedings, 7(2-3), 2009 May-June, p. 446-457.
“Income Inequality and Progressive Income Taxation in China and India, 1986-2010” (with Thomas Piketty) American Economic Journal – Applied Economics, 1(2), 2009 April, p. 53-63.
“Missing Women and the Price of Tea in China: The Effect of Sex-Specific Income on Sex Im-balance,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 123(3), 2008 August, p.1251-1285.
Working Papers
“Discrimination, Disenfranchisement and WWII U.S. Military Enlistment” (2024) (with Marco Tabellini) NBER Working Paper 29482. Conditionally Accepted at the Review of Economic Studies.
"The Long-run Impact of the Chinese Exclusion Act" (New Draft Sept. 2024) (with Joe Long, Carlo Medici and Macro Tabellini)
"The Political-Economic Determinants of Nuclear Energy: Evidence from Chernobyl" (with Alexey Makarin and Shaoda Wang) (2024)
“Abhijit Banerjee” edited by Michael Cord, in preparation for The Palgrave Companion for MIT Economics, Palgrave.
“Choosing Racial Identity in the United States, 1880-1940” (2020) (with Ricardo Dahis and Emily Nix) NBER Working Paper No. 26465. Updated June 2020.
“Making Democracy Work: Culture, Social Capital and Elections in China” (with Monica Martinez-Bravo, Gerard Padro-i-Miquel, Yiqing Xu and Yang Yao) (2017). Revise and Resubmit at The Journal of European Economic Review.
“Distrust and Political Turnover” (with Nathan Nunn and Jaya Wen) (2023) NBER Working Paper 24184. Revise and Resubmit at The Economic Journal.
“The Dynamic Effects of Computerizing VAT Invoices on Chinese Manufacturing Firms” (with Haichao Fan, Yu Liu and Jaya Wen) (2020) NBER Working Paper 24414.
“The Long-run Effects of Agricultural Productivity on Conflict, 1400-1900” (with Murat Iyigun and Nathan Nunn) (2017) NBER Working Paper 24066.
“News Content in Government-Controlled Media" (with Zhao Chen, Georgy Egorov, Jing-bing Feng and Heyu Xiong) (2019).
“Aggregate Fertility and Household Savings: A General Equilibrium Analysis using Micro data” (with Abhijit Banerjee, Xin Meng and Tommaso Porzio) (2014) NBER Working Paper w20050.
“The Long-run Impact of Famine on Survivors: Evidence from China’s Great Famine 1959-61” (with Xin Meng) (2009) NBER Working Paper w14917.
Select Works in Progress
"The Political-economic Determinants of Taiwan's National Identity" (with Marco Tabellini and Yifan Zhang)
“Predicting Population Growth Better” (with Ernest Liu)
"Measuring Chinese Migration with Online Consumption Data" (with Bo li and Ernest Liu)
"The Cultural Revolution and the Evolution of China's Economic Ideology " (with Alina Wang)
"NGOs in Developing Economies" (with Erika Deserrano), in preparation for the Annual Review of Economics.
“When Does Government Repression Work?” (with Gerard Padro-i-Miquel), in preparation for the Handbook of Political Economy, edited by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, North Holland.
“China’s Internal Fault Lines: Evidence from Machine Learning” (with Alina Wang)
"Missing Women in China" In preparation for the Journal of Economic Literature.
Book
Inglorious Nations: The Rise, Fall and Reinvention of Large Civilizations, Under Contract with the University of Chicago Press.