1. Population, Resource, and Enviornmental Economics
My main areas of interest in this field are human capital and health. I also extend my research to cover issues of precarious employment, gender equality, and climate change.
Representative publications in 2022 and later:
Castiel Chen Zhuang, Chujian Shao*, and Qiliang Chen. "Heterogeneous Impacts of Trade Liberalization on Export Entry and Training: A Multi-Destination Perspective", The World Economy, 48: 922-960, April 2025.
- Topics: Human capital; Market structure.
- Presented at the WEAI's 99th Annual Meeting, and 2024 International Conference on Empirical Economics (ICEE) at PSU Altoona.
Hongbing Xu, Castiel Chen Zhuang*, Vanessa Oddo, Espoir Bwenge Malembaka, Xinhou He, Qinghong Zhang, and Wei Huang. "Maternal Preconceptional and Prenatal Exposure to El Niño-Southern Oscillation Levels and Child Mortality: A Multi-country Study." Nature Communications, 15: 6034, July 2024.
- Topics: Health; Climate change.
Castiel Chen Zhuang, Jessica Jones-Smith, Sarah Andrea, Anjum Hajat, and Vanessa Oddo. "Maternal Precarious Employment and Child Overweight/Obesity in the United States", Preventive Medicine, 169: 107471, April 2023.
- Topics: Precarious employment; Health.
Other publications in 2022 and later:
Zhihan Cui, Lu Liu, and Castiel Chen Zhuang*. "The Impact of the Removal of Zero-COVID Policies on Subjective Well-being: Evidence from a Digital World." Economics Letters, 229: 111189, August 2023.
- Topics: Health。
Vanessa Oddo*, Castiel Chen Zhuang, Jerome Dugan, Sarah Andrea, Anjum Hajat, and Trevor Peckham, Jessica Jones-Smith. "Association between Precarious Employment and BMI in the United States." Obesity, 31(1): 234-242, January 2023.
- Topics: Precarious employment; Health.
- Highlights: Selected as Editors' Choice.
Hongbing Xu, Castiel Chen Zhuang* Xinpeng Guan, Xinghou He, Rongshan Wu, Tong Wang, Qinghong Zhang, and Wei Huang. "Associations of Climate Variability Driven by El Niño-Southern Oscillation with Excess Mortality and Related Medical Costs in Chinese Elderly." Science of the Total Environment, 851: 158196, December 2022.
- Topics: Health; Climate change.
OLDER PUBLICATIONS (BEFORE 2022)
Vanessa Oddo*, Castiel Chen Zhuang, Sarah Andrea, Jerzy Eisenberg-Guyot, Trevor Peckham, Daniel Jacoby, and Anjum Hajat. "Changes in Precarious Employment in the United States: A Longitudinal Analysis." Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health, 47(3): 171-180, April 2021.
- Topics: Precarious employment; Gender equality.
- Highlights: Highly cited paper; Cited by Forbes, Lancet, BMJ, and influencial articles.
Yi Chen, Julie Shi*, and Castiel Chen Zhuang. "Income-dependent Impacts of Health Insurance on Medical Expenditures: Theory and Evidence from China." China Economic Review, 53: 290-310, February 2019.
- Topics: Health behavior
Xuezheng Qin, Castiel Chen Zhuang*, and Rudai Yang. "Does One-Child Policy Improve Children's Human Capital in Urban China? A Regression Discontinuity Design." Journal of Comparative Economics, 45(2): 287-303, May 2017.
- Topics: Human capital.
Xuezheng Qin*, Tianyu Wang, and Castiel Chen Zhuang. "Intergenerational Transfer of Human Capital and Its Impact on Income Mobility: Evidence from China." China Economic Review, 38: 306-321, April 2016.
- Topics: Human capital.
Working Papers/Work In Progress
"Existing National Anti-Poverty Campaign and Mental Health", with Zhengwen Liu and Yibo Wu (working paper)
- Topics: Health.
- Presented at City University of Macau, Liaoning University, and the 3rd Xiangjiang River Forum in Economics, Finance and Management for Young Scholars
"Cross-Gender Interaction and the Mating Market Dynamics: Evidence from a Sexual Health Education Field Experiment", with Zhihan Cui, Fangwen Lu, Xuezheng Qin, and Jinxian Yao (working paper)
- Topics: Human capital; Gender equality.
- Presented at the 9th CCER Summer Institute, Liaoning University International Conference 2024 ("China Development and Global Economy"), Peking University Guanghua School of Management, Fudan University, Central University of Finance and Economics, Wuhan University, and Xi'an Jiaotong University
- See our AEA RCT Registry
"The Q-Q Trade-off Revisit: Family Responses to the First Temporary Basic Income Program in Malaysia", with Saizi Xiao, Rosita Hamdan, Wong Chin Yoong, and Sharifah Nabilah Syed Salleh (working paper)
- Topics: Human capital.
- Presented at the 7th RUC-GLO Annual Conference on "Low Fertility and Population Ageing"
- This project is supported by MIER and UNDP
2. Empirical Industrial Organization
I am also an empirical IO guy focusing on productivity and industrial policy (in pharmeceutical industry, health insurance industry, manufacturing industry, etc.). My topics usually require a structural estimation of consumer demand, and/or discussing market structure. Recently, I am also interested in topics related to the green economy.
Representative publications in 2022 and later:
Jun Liu, Weilin Zhao*, and Castiel Chen Zhuang. "Going Green or Losing Edge? The Impact of Government Procurement on Carbon Reduction and Firm Value in China", Energy Economics, 142: 108219.
- Topics: Market structure; Green economy.
Feng Yu, Ning Li, Castiel Chen Zhuang*, and Jingwei Chen. "Can Rising Urban House Prices Actually Limit the Outward FDI by Firms in a Home Country? A Story from China." Journal of International Money and Finance, 147: 103164, September 2024.
- Topics: Productivity; Market structure.
Other publications in 2022 and later:
Nur Nadia Kamil, Saizi Xiao, Sharifah Nabilah Syed Salleh, Hongbing Xu, and Castiel Chen Zhuang*. "Nonlinear Impacts of Climate Anomalies on Oil Palm Productivity." Heliyon, 10(15): e35798, Auguest 2024.
- Topics: Climate change; Productivity.
Qifan Huang, Saizi Xiao, and Castiel Chen Zhuang*. "The Heterogeneous Impact of COVID-19 in a Two-Sided Market: Evidence from a Live-Streaming Platform." Applied Economics, 54(49): 5670-5689, October 2022.
- Presented in the NABE TEC 2020 Virtual Poster Sessions
- Topics: Market structure.
Qifan Huang, and Castiel Chen Zhuang*. "Training, Productivity, and Wages: An Investigation of China's Manufacturing Enterprises in a Privatization Era." Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, 30(2): 269-288, Apr 2022.
- Topics: Human capital; Productivity; Market structure.
WORKING PAPERS/WORK IN PROGRESS
"Examining the Zero-Markup Drug Policy in China: A Structural Approach", with Qifan Huang and Zhentong Lu (working paper)
- Topics: Industrial policy; Market structure.
- Previously circulated as "Vertical Separation and Price Negotiation: A Case Study of China's Lipid-Lowering Drug Industry"
- Presented at Nankai University, Liaoning University, and SUNY Albany, and also the 2022 SUFE-JinanIO Conference (previously known as China-VIOS), 2022 AEA/ASSA Annual Meeting, 2021 China Meeting of Econometric Society, WEAI's 2021 Virtual International Conference (presented by coauthor; check out the session information here), and WEAI's 96th Annual Conference (check out the session information here)
- Slides (Jun 16, 2022)
"Product Assortment and Competition: Evidence from Live-Streaming Platform Influencers", with Ying-chin Chen, Qifan Huang, and Yushi Wang
- Topics: Market structure.
- Previously circulated as "The Causal Impact of Market Competition on Product Variety: A Deep Neural Network Representation Learning Approach" and "Live-Commerce Product Assortment and Competition: Evidence from Live-Streaming Platform Celebrities"
- Presented at the 2021 INFORMS Annual Meeting (presented by coauthor; check out the session abstract here)
"Health Insurance Design with Heterogeneous Preferences", with Julie Shi and Xi Wang
- Topics: Industrial policy; Market structure.
- Previously circulated as "Understanding Deductible and Reimbursement Maximum: A Study of Rural China's Tiered Medical System", "Understanding Deductible and Reimbursement Maximum in a Tiered Medical System" and "Health Insurance Design in a Tiered Medical System"
- Presented at Renmin University of China, Capital University of Economics and Business, and Central University of Finance and Economics and also the 2022 ARIA Annual Meeting, and WEAI's 98th Annual Meeting
"China's Battles Against Environmental Degradation: Evidence from 40 Years of Policies", with Xianling Long and Zhiqiang Wang
- Topics: Climate change; Industrial policies; Green economy.
"Do Joint Ventures Innovate More? Micro-evidence from China", with Jingwei Chen, Guanhua Hu, and Feng Yu
- Topics: Productivity.
Other Work
Yanbin Li, Xingyao Song, Leilei Sun*, Castiel Chen Zhuang*, Jiayi Liu, and Meng Yang. "Exploring Urbanization Strategies by Dissecting Aggregate Crowd Behaviors: A Case Study in China", Systems, 12(11): 459.
Jiayi Liu, Yanbin Li, Yanhan Xu, Castiel Chen Zhuang*, Yang Hu, and Yue Yu. "Impacts of Built Environment on Urban Vitality in Cultural Districts: A Case Study of Haikou and Suzhou", Land, 13(6): 840, June 2024.
Saizi Xiao, and Castiel Chen Zhuang*. "Measuring and Decomposing the Multidimensional Financial Wellbeing in Malaysia", Empirical Economics Letters, 23(4): 125-140, April 2024.
"The Effect of Becoming Government's Supplier on Earnings Management", with Jun Liu and Wenli Xu (R&R)
"Is Younger Better? The Impacts of Early Promotion on Chinese Politicians and Regional Economic Development", with Yunxuan Zhu
"Heterogeneous Policy Impacts: A Modal Regression Approach", with Ying-chin Chen
