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Education                                                                            

 

Ph.D., Economics, Clemson University, May 2018

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M.A., Economics, Clemson University, Dec 2014

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B.A., Economics, East China Normal University, July 2012

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Fields of Interest                                                                 

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Public Economics, Labor Economics, Applied Econometrics

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Job Market Paper                                                               

 

"The Insurance Value of Progressive Taxation with Heterogeneous Risk Aversion"

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Investment in human capital is lower when the returns to it are subject to uninsurable risk. Progressive income taxation offers a degree of insurance against such risk. Offsetting this effect
are the two well-known distortions imposed by progressive taxation: lower expected net-of-tax returns to human-capital acquisition and distortion of the labor-supply decision. The net efficiency effect of progressive income taxation is therefore ambiguous, but there is a presumption that some degree of progressivity can be welfare-improving for risk-averse individuals. To get a general idea of the degree of progressivity that may be desirable on efficiency grounds, I construct a simple general-equilibrium model of an economy with two sectors, calibrated to approximate the U.S. labor market, that differ in terms of the productivity of human capital and the variability of lifetime earnings. Individuals, who differ only in terms of their risk aversion, sort themselves into the two sectors. The simple version of this model, which ignores the labor-leisure choice, suggests that a relatively high degree of income-tax progressivity maximizes aggregate welfare as measured by workers willingness to pay for the insurance being provided. When each workers supply of labor is allowed to vary in response to marginal tax rates, the efficient degree of progressivity is similar to that of the U.S. tax code.

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Working Paper                                                                    

 

"Worker Quality, Wages and the Education Premium in the United States, 1980-2005"  under review

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The education premium in the U.S. has been increasing since the 1980s, but the rate of increase has slowed. One explanation for the slowdown is the decrease in the quality of workers
who attended some college relative to the quality of workers who obtained a high school diploma. This paper develops a measure of worker quality to estimate the impact of college and
high school graduates quality on wages and the education premium. The measure of worker quality uses a weighted average of an occupational skill index. I link occupational skill to the measurement of quality because the variance of college wages is increasing over time and is directly related to occupational choice. I find that a 1 percent increase in the quality of both high school and college graduates results in a 0.36 percent increase in the education premium, which is an economically meaningful change. One reason for the decline in the quality of college
graduates comes from the increasing college enrollment over time. I find that a 1 percent increase in college enrollment leads to a decline in the quality of college graduates by 0.11 percent, and has nearly no effect on the quality of high school graduates.

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"Top-coded Earnings Using Non-Public Census Microdata" (with Chungsang Lam)

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Wage and salary earnings, above a particular value, are censored in the ACS, March CPS and Decennial Census. If authors use the top codes to represent real earnings value, it may lead to misleading results. We explore this issue by using RDC internal data, while focusing on wage and earnings variables. Others have addressed the issue of top-coding, and also used non-public data to develop various alternative multipliers, like 1.4 or 1.5. We improve on this research, which focuses on producing multipliers for the whole population, by developing multipliers that are demographic and region specific. It is not unreasonable to expect that the earnings distribution varies across racial, gender, and education dimensions, and even across geographies. These various adjustment factors will improve the usefulness of the Census Bureau public data for evaluating demographic, social, and economic issues that rely on information for very high earners.

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Teaching Experience                                                          

 

Instructor, Clemson University

Principles of Microeconomics                                                  Fall 2017, Fall 2016, Summer 2016

PhD level Economic Theory Comprehensive Exam Review                                    Summer 2015

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Teaching Assistant, Clemson University

Public Sector Economics (Undergraduate)                                                                             2017

Microeconomics I (PhD level)                                                                                        2013-2015

Microeconomics II (PhD level)                                                                                       2015-2016

Microeconomics III (PhD level)                                                                                               2015

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Honors, Awards and Fellowships                                      

 

Graduate Research Assistant Excellence Award, Clemson University                          2017-2018

Michael T. Maloney Fellowship , Clemson University                                                    2017-2018

Francis M. & Herman N. Hipp Fellowship, Clemson University                                     2015-2017

Graduate Assistantship, Clemson University                                                                 2013-2018

Professional Enrichment Grant, Clemson University                                                     2015-2017

Royal Economic Society Conference Grant                                                                            2015

     

                                               

Invited Workshops                                                              

 

Price Theory Summer Camp, University of Chicago                                                               2016
Summer School on Socioeconomic Inequality, University of Chicago                                    2015

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Conference Presentations                                                 

 

Southern Economic Association                                                                                             2017

National Tax Association Annual Meeting                                                                               2017

ARIA Huebner Doctoral Colloquium                                                                                        2017
Southern Economic Association                                                                                             2016
Midwest Economic Association                                                                                               2016
Royal Economic Society PhD Meetings                                                                                  2016
INET Replication and Transparency in Economic Research Workshop                                 2016
Summer School for Socioeconomic Inequality, University of Chicago                                    2015
Workshop in Public Economics, Clemson University                                                     2014-2017
Workshop in Labor Economics, Clemson University                                                      2014-2017

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Technical Skills                                                                   

 

R, STATA, Palmetto Cluster, LATEX, Microsoft Office

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Language                                                                            

 

Mandarin (Native), English (Fluent)

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Professional Memberships                                                

 

American Economic Association, Econometric Society, National Tax Association, Southern Economic Association

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Other                                                                                   

 

Special Sworn Status, U.S. Census Bureau, 2017-

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References                                                                         

 

William R. Dougan   
Alumni Distinguished Professor, Clemson University
John E. Walker Dept. of Economics

201 Sirrine Hall,

Clemson, SC, 29634

864-525-6701

douganw@clemson.edu

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​Howard Bodenhorn

Professor, Clemson University
John E. Walker Dept. of Economics

200B Sirrine Hall,

Clemson, SC, 29634

864-656-4335

bodnhrn@clemson.edu

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Robert K. Fleck

Professor, Clemson University
John E. Walker Dept. of Economics

228B Sirrine Hall,

Clemson, SC, 29634

864-656-3964

rfleck@clemson.edu

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Chungsang Lam 
Assistant Professor, Clemson University
John E. Walker Dept. of Economics

200E Sirrine Hall,

Clemson, SC, 29634

773-510-9809

tomlam@clemson.edu

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