Work in Progress
The Welfare Effects of Expanding Housing Supply Through Subdivision, with Jiayin Hu, Shangchen Li, and Yue Yu
(Draft available upon request)
Abstract: Subdividing a single housing unit into multiple smaller, self-contained units is a critical yet understudied approach to expanding affordable housing. This paper both examines the causal impacts of subdivision on housing costs and estimates its welfare and distributional impacts on tenants. We exploit the expansion of the largest PropTech shared-rental platform in China, whose flagship service entails converting the living room of an apartment into an additional bedroom and subdividing the unit into individual rooms, each leased to a separate tenant. We find that a 1% increase in the subdivided apartments leads to a 0.9% decline in bedroom rents, a 0.5% decline in rents for non-remodeled rental units, and a 2.2% reduction in apartment sale prices. To evaluate welfare impacts, we develop a structural model that incorporates tenants' heterogeneous preferences for public amenities and analyzes the distributional effects of remodeling. Results reveal that disadvantaged groups exhibit stronger preferences for remodeled housing, whereas residents in buildings with such units experience negative externalities. Counterfactual analyses quantify the welfare consequences of supply expansion and externalities and explore how alternative spatial allocations of remodeling could improve overall welfare.
Presented at European UEA, the 3rd Annual Conference on Asia and the Global Economy
The Recovery of Forest and its Impacts on Left-Behind Children in Western China, with Christopher Timmins
(Draft available upon request)
Abstract: This paper explores the effectiveness of these policies on afforestation on rural families (including adultsand children) considering policy-induced land transition and labor migration. Embedding changes in land use and labor allocation in the triple difference approach and the instrumental variable approach, we extend afforestation studies in three dimensions: characterizing its short- and long-run effects on income and off-farm migration, estimating its spillover effects on Left Behind Children, and evaluating its distributional welfare effects. The results provide evidence of negative effects on vulnerable groups and left-behind children, showing that lower-income rural adults are significantly more likely to out-migrate for urban jobs corresponding to afforestation induced land transition. Though children are less likely to quit schools due to compensation from afforestation and remittance, left-behind children’s education performance and life attainments including marriage, health, and income in adulthood are adversely affected. Afforestation policies have regressive impacts and favor wealthy families and families with less arable land. Provided that the PES policy was designed to protect forest resources as well as alleviate poverty in rural areas, the differential welfare
results raise the concern of environmental justice in policy design and evaluations.
Presented at Western Economic Association (WEAI) Annual Conference, Southern Economic Association (SEA) Annual Conference, AARES Conference, NAREA Scholar Circle, AERE 2025 Summer Conference
Impacts of Transportation Infrastructure on Labor Market and Residential Mobility: the Effects of New Metro Lines in Los Angeles, with Chris Severen
Crafting the Soundscape of the Future: Economic Impacts of Traffic Road Noise, with Yatang Lin, Cong Peng
funded by General Research Fund (GRF), 2024
High-speed Rail and Migration in China, with Deyu Rao, Lin Yang and Yatang Lin