Research
Job Market Paper
Restricting Video Games in China: Effects on Time Use, Educational Achievement, and Health Revise and resubmit
Abstract
China's 2021 regulation virtually eliminated weekday online gaming for minors and limited play to one hour on weekends/holidays. Using nationally representative CFPS data (2020, 2022) in a difference-in-differences design, I find sharp declines in minors' gaming and total Internet use but no robust improvements in study effort, academic performance, or physical health, with suggestive declines in mental well-being. A complementary Regression Kink (RK) design using city mock-exam data around the age-18 cutoff likewise shows no robust exam effects.
Working Papers
Digital Regulation and Market Responses: Evidence from Chinese Mobile Apps
When Success Becomes Salient: Local Role Models and Schooling Decisions (with Ruoming Zhang) Under review
Premarital Property Rights and Marriage Timing: Evidence from Urban China (with Ruoming Zhang) Under review
Less Paperwork, More Marriages: Registration Frictions and Marriage Outcomes (with Ruoming Zhang)
From Seats to Status: China’s 1999 Higher-Education Expansion and Urban–Rural Occupational Mobility (with Yiqun Tong and Ruoming Zhang) Under review. Draft available upon request.
Work in Progress
Generative AI as a Product Feature: Causal Evidence from iOS Apps
This project estimates the business returns to adopting generative AI as a product feature in mobile apps, building a daily panel for iOS apps that entered the Top-1000 charts during 2020–2025. Using event-study designs robust to staggered adoption, I estimate dynamic effects on revenue, downloads, growth, and rank.
Legal Clarification and Judicial Consistency: Evidence from China
This paper tests whether clarifying legal rules reduces judicial discretion and increases consistency in adjudication, exploiting the 2011 issuance of the Supreme People’s Court Judicial Interpretation (III) on marriage property disputes.
Digital Market Access and Local Development: Evidence from China
This paper evaluates whether expanding digital market access generates broad-based local development gains, using the staggered rollout of China’s “E-Commerce Poverty Alleviation Counties” program and difference-in-differences methods.