Field 1: Empirical Industrial Organization
I am 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 government procurement.
Selected working papers and work in progress:
"Unobserved Individual Traits, Hospital Choice, and Health Insurance Design", with Julie Shi
- Topics: Market structure; Industrial policy.
- Previously circulated as "Understanding Deductible and Reimbursement Maximum: A Study of Rural China's Tiered Medical System", and a few other titles
- Presented at Renmin University of China, Capital University of Economics and Business, and Central University of Finance and Economics and also the 2025 International Symposium on Contemporary Labor Economics, 2022 ARIA Annual Meeting, and WEAI's 98th Annual Meeting
"Beyond Bureaucrats: Financial Anti-Corruption and the Quantity-Quality Responses in Corporate Asset Sales", with Liutang Gong, Yuhan Huang, and Dongxu Li
- Topics: Market structure.
- The manuscript is available upon request.
"Carbon Reduction Effect of Green Public Procurement Through Supply-Chain Networks", with Xi Ji and Jun Liu
- Topics: Government procurement; Market structure.
"Corporate Performance Disparities in ASEAN: The Role of Market Competition, Female Leadership, and Firm Size", with Yizhi Tu and Saizi Xiao (R&R)
- Topics: Gender; Market structure.
"Product Assortment and Competition: Evidence from Live-Streaming Platform Influencers", with Ying-chin Chen, Qifan Huang, and Yushi Wang (R&R)
- 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)
"Technological Transition under U.S. Sanctions: The Role of Government Procurement in China", with Shengjun Zhu and Jun Liu
- Topics: Government procurement; Productivity.
"International Collaborative Innovation: Do Joint Ventures Give Foreign-Invested Enterprises More Innovation Advantages", with Jingwei Chen, Guanhua Hu, Ning Li, and Feng Yu
- Topics: Productivity.
"China's Battles Against Environmental Degradation: Evidence from 40 Years of Policies", with Xianling Long and Zhiqiang Wang
- Topics: Industrial policy.
Selected publications since 2022:
刘军，朱晟君*，庄晨：“以购促治：政府绿色采购的碳减排效应与企业转型路径”，《中国人口·资源与环境》，接受待刊。
- Topics: Government procurement; Productivity; Market structure.
Qifan Huang, Zhentong Lu, and Castiel Chen Zhuang*. "Physician Agency and the Zero-Markup Drug Policy in China: Evidence from a Structural Model", Health Economics, online first.
- Topics: Industrial policy; Government procurement; Market structure.
- Previously circulated as "Examining the Zero-Markup Drug Policy in China: A Structural Approach" and "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)
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; Productivity; Market structure.
- Presented at the WEAI's 99th Annual Meeting, and 2024 International Conference on Empirical Economics (ICEE) at PSU Altoona.
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.
Jun Liu, Castiel Chen Zhuang*, and Wenli Xu. "Govermnet as Ally: How Public Procurement Influences Firms' Financial Pandering", Public Finance Review, online first.
- Topics: Government procurement; Market structure.
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: Government procurement; Market structure.
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.
Field 2: Population/Labor/Health Economics
My main areas of interest in this field are human capital and population. I also extend my research to cover issues of precarious employment, gender, and health.
Selected working papers and work in progress:
"Welfare After the End of Welfare Program", with Zhengwen Liu, Ye Yuan, and Yibo Wu
- Topics: Health.
- Presented at City University of Macau, Liaoning University, 2025 CES China Annual Conference, WEAI's 100th Annual Conference, The 8th Annual ICCDS, 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
- Topics: Human capital; Population; Gender.
- 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
"Unemployment and Subjective Beliefs: Unintended Consequences of China's 2008 Labor Contract Law", with Yuewen Hu, and Liqiu Zhao
- Topics: Health; Precarious employment.
- Presented at The 8th RUC-GLO Annual Conference on "Micro Population Economics and Human Relations"
"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
- Topics: Human capital; Population.
- Presented at The 7th RUC-GLO Annual Conference on "Low Fertility and Population Ageing"
- This project is supported by MIER and UNDP
Selected publications since 2022:
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: Population; Health and wellbeing.
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 and wellbeing.
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 and wellbeing.
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.
Selected 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.
- 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
秦雪征，庄晨*，杨汝岱：“计划生育对子女教育水平的影响——来自中国的微观证据”，《经济学(季刊)》，2018年第3期，第897-922页。
- Topics: Human capital; Population.
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; Population.
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.
秦雪征*，周建波，辛奕，庄晨：“城乡二元医疗保险结构对农民工返乡意愿的影响——以北京市农民工为例”，《中国农村经济》，2014年第2期，第56-68页。
- Topics: Population; Market structure.
- Highlights: 全文转载于人大复印报刊资料《统计与精算》2014年第4期
Other Fields
I also explore research in applied econometrics and urban science.
Selected working papers and work in progress:
"A Way to Synthetic Triple Difference", sole author
"Heterogeneous Policy Impacts: A Modal Regression Approach", with Ying-chin Chen
Selected publications since 2022:
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.
