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Curiculum Vitae (Download a complete version in *.pdf)
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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