I am a PhD Candidate of Political Science at Duke University. My research focuses on business-state relations, bureaucracy, good governance, and authoritarian politics with a regional interest in China. Methodologically, I am interested in the “Big Data” analysis of state-business relations. For my dissertation and other research projects, I develop automated methods for collecting and matching extensive administrative data and create two original databases: the Chinese Revolving-Door Officials Database and the Chinese Public-Private Partnership Database.
My research has been funded by institutions including National Science Foundation, Google Cloud Platform, Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation, and other research grants.
PhD in Political Science, 2021 (expected)
Duke University
MPhil in Social Science, 2016
Hong Kong University of Science & Technology
LLB in Political Science, 2014
Fudan University
Institutionalized Rent-Seeking: The Political-Business Revolving Door in China
Does the political-business revolving door, a phenomenon where retired public officials take lucrative positions in the private sector, emerge in non-democracies? If so, when, how, and why? My dissertation proposes a theoretical framework for understanding the emergence of revolving-door officials in authoritarian regimes and tests the theory through rigorous inquiry into firms in China. Scholars contend that firms enter the political marketplace primarily through bribery or by entrepreneurs running for public office in a weak institutional context. My dissertation challenges this conventional understanding by arguing that revolving-door channels become a dominant means of rent-seeking when the within-government career opportunities are rare for public officials and the private sector is profitable.
Chinese Revolving-Door Officials Database
The Chinese Revolving-Door Officials Database contains extensive demographic and career information of over 10,000 government officials who serve on the board of all Chinese publicly listed firms since the 2000s. The database is consist of three parts:
The database is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Political Science at Duke University and Duke Asian Pacific Studies Institute.
Chinese Public-Private Partnership Database
The Chinese Public-Private Partnership Database provides detailed information of all Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects contracted by various levels of governments in China from 2013. The database includes:
Quantative Methods
Probability and Regression*, Lab Instructor and TA, Fall 2019.
Handouts and Code
Quantitative Analysis in Social Science*, Lab Instructor and TA, Fall 2019, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Handouts and Code
Data Science
Political Economy
Prisoner’s Dilemma and Distributive Justice, Teaching Assistant, Fall 2018, Duke University.
Global Corruption, Teaching Assistant, Spring 2019, Duke University.
World of Politics, Teaching Assistant, Fall 2016, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Introduction to Economics, Teaching Assistant, Spring 2015, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
* Graduate-level