political economy, historical development, environmental economics, Chinese Economy

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Recommendation Letter
Dear Sir/Madam,
It’s my pleasure to recommend to you Mr. Zhi Zhu, as the best student I have ever instructed. Zhu is a third-year master’s degree student in the Department of Economics at Fudan University, and we have known each other for more than three years. I first got in touch with him in the autumn semester of 2012 when he was taking my postgraduate course “Micro-econometrics.” In the spring semester of the following year, he also registered for my undergraduate course “Contemporary Chinese Economy” and my postgraduate course “Advanced Topics in Development Microeconomics.” He performed most excellently in these two classes. Now, Zhu is my co-author in my four types of research, among which two papers are complete, and the other two are in the process of completion.
When auditing in my course, he always contacted me and discussed some research problems that he had with me. Therefore, I encouraged him to take part in the regular seminars that I organized and to conduct some preliminary research work like raw data collection and management. In this process, I was very impressed by his active and outstanding performance. Therefore, I allowed him to become my research assistant in October 2013, and his first task was to assist me to collect and manage data. Zhu has finished following datasets; Chinese daily climatic information, housing prices in 161 Chinese disease surveillance points, the population of Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), personal information of local Chinese leaders and presented scholars (jinshi) from 1368 to 1910.

Among them, “Data on Prefectural Party Secretary and Mayor of P. R. China, 2000-2010(02)”, the main dataset collected by a group led by him, has been published (https://pan.baidu.com/share/link?shareid=1106261618&uk=2285138924). As such, I felt very satisfied with the quality of his work, and I also believed that the knowledge he gained his training was essential to develop his career further. Meanwhile, I also instructed him to read and review academic literature, learn statistic software (e.g., Stata) and geographical information system (e.g., ArcGIS). Now, Zhu has become a master of these data analysis tools and can proficiently utilize these them to manage and visualize data.
Until 2014, I believe that Zhu had acquired enough experience and the ability to participate in my research as a co-author. Therefore, we investigated the political selection mechanism of the local Chinese officials. This project, “Relative Performance Evaluation and Discretionary Power: Official Governance in China,” is motivated by the debate on whether Chinese local officials’ promotion depends on the economic performance they have created. We think that this debate is attributable to the heterogeneity of provincial data, and thus use micro-level county data to deal with it. In my understanding, it is the most micro-level and homogenous datasets that are available, although it takes a lot of effort to collect such data (there are 34 provinces, 2913 counties in China). This paper finds that the likelihood of county secretaries’ promotion increases with the economic performance positions that they have created. But, such a relationship is not linear, which means that the evaluation of local officials depends on both their economic performance and political connections. This research deepens our comprehension of the dynamic nature of China’s political selection. Currently, this research is under review.
The second project that I collaborated with Zhu, “Gone with The Wind? Fossil-Fuel Power Plants and Public Health in China”, lies in the field of applied micro-econometrics. This paper aims to investigate the external effects of China’s air pollution on public health. A challenge to examining this problem the poor quality of data. Since environmental issues are closely related to local governments’ images and officials’ evaluation, only limited pollution data is published and much has been manipulated. In this paper, we employ industrial production, the data quality that is reliable, as a proxy, combine it with wind speed and direction. Therefore, we can systematically examine the adverse effects of air pollution from fossil-fuel power plants on deaths due to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Currently, we have finished the preliminary draft of this paper.
My other research, where Zhu also serves as a co-author, tried to investigate the long-term effects of historical events. A lot of literature concerning economic growth shows that the average human capital measured by literacy or enrollment contributes greatly affects long-term economic development. However, the evidence concerning elite human capital’s role is scarce. In this research, we utilized the establishment of the Ming garrisons (weisuo) as a natural experiment to determine the effects of elite human capital on long-term economic growth. Garrisons were established by the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) for military reasons, and people in these divisions were required to serve in the army and take hereditary and heavy burdens. As such, they had no chance to prepare for and pass the civil exam, which was the only way for ancient Chinese to become elites. In other words, the establishment of Ming garrisons (weisuo) prevented the nurturing of local elites and therefore hampered regional economic growth. This paper is related to a new dynamic; an empirical literature examining the legacy of history. Currently, we have finished data collection and management, where we found some preliminary evidence supporting our story. We are now performing the further empirical analysis.
The fourth research we conducted together was called “Chasing or Cheating? The Political Economy of Chinese GDP Statistics.” My college professors Yu Liu and Nancy Qian of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University were co-authors. As we all know, although China has experienced over three decades of unprecedented economic growth, there is persisting debate over the reliability of the Chinese GDP statistics. Firstly, we used night light and electricity as benchmarks to examine whether the Chinese GDP is reliable and then tried to identify some of the political factors manipulating China’s GDP. Specifically, we attempted to investigate whether officials’ promotion incentive would affect GDP manipulation in China. Currently, we have finished all empirical analysis and are writing our draft. What deserves to be mentioned the most is that in all my collaborations with researchers, Zhu has demonstrated compelling independence in his research capability, including data management, literature review, empirical analysis and draft writing.
I have had more than three years of instructions and communication with Zhu. Therefore, I am convinced that he is equipped with the qualities to become a high-quality researcher with assiduity, perseverance, and professionalism. He can not only raise research questions but also independently conduct a literature review and apply appropriate methodologies (either theoretical models or empirical analysis) to realize his research design. Meanwhile, as a perseverant researcher, he has been equipped with wealth of experience in collaborative research and outstanding capability. With that, he has impressed me greatly with his excellent performance in my research team.
Therefore, I highly recommend Zhu to your program, and I believe he is competent to further his study and research in your university.