Research
Publication
Restricting Video Games in China: Effects on Time Use, Educational Achievement, and Health Journal of Development Economics, 103812 (2026)
Job Market Paper, 2025–26
Abstract
In 2021, the Chinese government introduced a highly restrictive policy that sharply limited minors' access to online video games, effectively eliminating weekday play and allowing only minimal play on weekends and holidays. Using nationally representative survey data and a difference-in-differences design, I find that the policy sharply reduced minors' gaming engagement and overall Internet use, reflecting substantial but incomplete compliance. However, these behavioral changes did not produce detectable short-run improvements in academic performance, nor clear evidence of an increase in study time. The health-related evidence is more limited, with no clear physical-health gains and suggestive indications of reduced mental well-being. Complementary evidence from city-level administrative data and a regression kink design likewise shows no robust effects on exam outcomes.
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.