In the third quarter of 2026, faculty and students from the School of Economics, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, achieved fruitful academic outputs, with 17 papers published in well-known economic journals at home and abroad. Among them, 9 papers appeared in international economics journals of Category II and above; two papers were published in domestic authoritative journals. The main information and abstracts of these academic achievements are presented below.
Tenured Associate Professor Shuguang Zhu from the Department of Microeconomics co-authored the paper Optimal Design of Market Access, officially published in American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, a top-tier international economics journal.
Optimal Design of Market Access
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
Volume 18, August 2026
We study a data provider’s problem of optimally designing and selling marketing lists that enable a retailer with private types to access consumers with heterogeneous characteristics. When virtual values satisfy a particular form of convexity (named boundary dominance), under certain regularity conditions, the optimal mechanism comprises fully revealing marketing lists, irrespective of whether the retailer’s types are vertically or horizontally ordered. Moreover, in the vertical case, the optimal mechanism allows a simple “fixed-price” implementation. In the horizontal case, it exhibits no-exclusion and rotation properties. Conversely, if boundary dominance is violated, the optimal mechanism may not be fully revealing.
Lecturer Yu Zhang from the Department of Resource and Environmental Economics co-authored the paper Securing power, compromising climate: Evidence from drought shocks in China, officially published in Journal of Development Economics, a top-tier international economics journal.
Securing power, compromising climate: Evidence from drought shocks in China
Journal of Development Economics
Volume 183, September 2026
This paper examines how natural disasters complicate government efforts to balance energy security with the energy transition in regulated electricity systems. Using random variations in runoff as a natural experiment, we find that droughts lead to a long-term expansion of coal-fired power capacity. This expansion is reflected in extensive-margin adjustments, particularly through the commissioning of new coal-fired power plants. We also show that, under administrative regulation of electricity trading and generation, this investment response is driven primarily by government efforts to strengthen power supply stability rather than by firms’ profit-seeking incentives alone. Our findings highlight how adaptive responses to climate-related supply shocks can generate long-lasting fossil-fuel legacies in developing countries where electricity markets are not yet fully developed.
Professor Lei Ning from the Department of Macroeconomics co-authored the paper The impact of pension reforms and rapid aging on savings and labor supply, officially published in Journal of Public Economics, a top-tier international economics journal.
The impact of pension reforms and rapid aging on savings and labor supply
Journal of Public Economics
Volume 261, July 2026
Over the past three decades, China has experienced substantial reductions in social security benefits due to pension reforms and undergone profound demographic changes. By combining empirical studies and quantitative analyses in a general equilibrium setting, this paper examines the effects of China’s pension reforms and rapid population aging on household saving and labor supply behaviors. Calibrating the model to the Chinese economy, we find that the pension reforms alone account for approximately 25 percent of the increase in the household saving rate between 1995 and 2009, and 49 percent of the sharp rise in labor supply over the same period. These effects are significantly amplified by rapid aging. Our study demonstrates that both household saving and labor supply serve as quantitatively important self-insurance channels in response to changes in pension generosity and longevity risk.
Tenured Professor Simin He and Ph.D. graduate Xinlu Zou from the Department of Microeconomics co-authored the paper Responsibility Sharing in a Public Bad Experiment, officially published in Economic Theory, an international Category II economics journal.
Responsibility Sharing in a Public Bad Experiment
Economic Theory
Volume 2, August 2026
We propose a novel mechanism to mitigate the provision of public bads in large groups. In the baseline case with centralized punishment, players choose their neighbors and having more neighbors brings benefits. Each player then decides whether to provide a public bad, which yields personal benefits but imposes costs on the entire group. A small chance exists that a player providing the public bad will be detected and punished. In the responsibility-sharing mechanism, when a player is caught providing the public bad, their neighbors are also punished. Our theoretical analysis and experimental results strongly support the effectiveness of this mechanism in promoting Pareto optimal outcomes. In addition, using another experimental treatment, we determine that the mechanism is less effective in the absence of complete feedback information.
Tenured Associate Professor Hanghui Zhang from the Department of Econometrics co-authored the paper Semiparametric Estimation of Quantile Regression with Binary Quantile Selection, officially published in Econometric Theory, an international Category II economics journal.
Semiparametric Estimation of Quantile Regression with Binary Quantile Selection
Econometric Theory
Volume 42, August 2026
This article proposes a novel method for estimating quantile regression models that account for sample selection. Unlike the approach by Arellano and Bonhomme(2017, Econometrica 85(1), 1–28; hereafter referred to as AB17), which employs a parametric selection equation, our method utilizes a standard binary quantile regression model to handle the selection issue, thereby accommodating general heterogeneity in both the selection and outcome equations. We adopt a semiparametric estimation technique for the outcome quantile regression by integrating local moment conditions, resulting in √n-consistent estimators for the quantile coefficients and copula parameter. Monte Carlo simulation results demonstrate that our estimator performs well in finite samples. Additionally, we apply our method to examine the wage distribution among women using a randomly simulated sample from the US General Social Survey. Our key finding is the presence of significant positive selection among women in the US, which is notably more pronounced than the estimates produced by the AB17’s model.
Tenured Associate Professor Shuguang Zhu from the Department of Microeconomics co-authored the paper Bayesian Persuasion Followed by Receiver’s Mechanism Design, officially published in Social Choice and Welfare, an international Category II economics journal.
Bayesian Persuasion Followed by Receiver’s Mechanism Design
Social Choice and Welfare
Volume 67, August 2026
In Bayesian persuasion, Receiver simply plays an action after Sender’s public signaling. However, in some applications, it seems natural that Receiver could elicit more information from Sender by offering a screening contract. We study its economic implications, mainly in a stylized binary, quasilinear environment. In the first model where Sender acquires full information as his private information, the public signal is less informative than that in Bayesian persuasion, suggesting that the public and private signals are “substitutes”. Meanwhile, both Sender and Receiver are better off than in Bayesian persuasion: Sender prefers “being further screened”. In the second model where Sender jointly designs both public and private signals, he sometimes finds it more profitable to have less precise private information. The outcome is most efficient (both in terms of information and welfare) with the first model, less so with the second model, and least in Bayesian persuasion. This suggests that economic predictions based on the standard Bayesian persuasion model might be biased toward overly inefficient outcomes.
Associate Professor Yaohua Li and doctoral candidate Yuhan Xiao from the Department of Economic History co-authored the paper Price discovery and long-distance market integration: Evidence from the Republican Chinese Cotton Goods Exchange, officially published in Explorations in Economic History, an international Category II economics journal.
Price discovery and long-distance market integration: Evidence from the Republican Chinese Cotton Goods Exchange
Explorations in Economic History
Volume 101, July 2026
Market integration is vital for economic development; its determinants have been extensively documented in the literature. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the role of economic organizations. This paper seeks to fill this gap by investigating the role of futures exchanges in Republican China. Using manually collected primary data, we employ a continuous difference-in-differences approach to analyze the impact of the Chinese Cotton Goods Exchange on long-distance market integration. We find that, following the exchange's establishment in 1921, geographically distant cities experienced a stronger increase in market integration with Shanghai than nearby cities. Regarding the underlying mechanism, we show that the price-discovery function of the futures exchange promoted long-distance market integration by centralizing markets and reducing price uncertainty.
Tenured Professor Ninghua Du and doctoral candidate Yi Yang from the Department of Microeconomics co-authored the paper Spillover Effects of Monitoring: An Experiment on Lying, officially published in Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, an international Category II economics journal.
Spillover Effects of Monitoring: An Experiment on Lying
Journal of Economics & Management Strategy
Volume 3, August 2026
We experimentally investigate the spillover effects of monitoring. In a controlled laboratory experiment, participants simultaneously self-report their payoffs in two tasks. Holding lies in the untargeted task to never be penalized, we vary the observability and the punishment for lying in the targeted task as follows: (1) the experimenter cannot observe the random draw that determines the payoff the participant should report, (2) the experimenter observes the participants' random draw, and (3) a penalty is imposed on the participant if the self-reported payoff and the random draw are not consistent. The results showed that while participants lied less in the targeted task given a higher level of monitoring, they significantly increased their lies in the untargeted task.
Tenured Professor Liguo Lin and doctoral candidate Xin Hu from the Department of Resource and Environmental Economics co-authored the paper Do Scholar-Officials Regulate Better? Incentives, Enforcement, and Emissions in China, officially published in Journal of Regulatory Economics, an international Category II economics journal.
Do Scholar-Officials Regulate Better? Incentives, Enforcement, and Emissions in China
Journal of Regulatory Economics
Volume 69, September 2026
This paper examines whether scholar-officials—local leaders with prior academic careers—improve environmental regulation in China. Using firm-level data, we find that jurisdictions led by scholar-officials reduce industrial emissions without harming economic growth. These leaders prioritize environmental protection, strengthen enforcement and penalties, and promote cleaner production. They also deter polluting firms while attracting cleaner ones, shifting industrial composition toward sustainability. Effects are stronger for private and foreign firms than for state-owned ones, suggesting ownership-specific compliance responses. The findings show that academic experience shapes regulatory behavior, enabling effective enforcement at limited economic cost.
Associate Professor Lin Wang and doctoral candidate Yonghao Ren from the Department of Political Economy co-authored the paper Guiding Digital Capital to Empower the Development of China’s Digital Productive Forces — From the Perspective of the Technology Revolution Life Cycle, officially published in Teaching and Research, a domestic Class B authoritative journal.
Guiding Digital Capital to Empower the Development of China’s Digital Productive Forces — From the Perspective of the Technology Revolution Life Cycle
Teaching and Research
Issue 7, 2026
Based on the theory of the life cycle of technological revolutions and the institutional characteristics of socialism with Chinese characteristics, this paper divides the development of digital productive forces into three stages: formation, growth and extension. It discusses the dual effects and operating mechanisms of digital capital at each stage. The analysis shows that in the formation stage of digital productive forces, the profit-seeking logic of digital capital helps promote the research and development of emerging digital technologies and the innovation of digital means of labor. Nevertheless, its combination with financial capital may easily lead to an economic tendency of shifting from the real economy to the virtual economy and hinder key innovation. In the growth stage, the super economic agglomeration effect of digital capital accelerates the transformation of emerging digital technologies into real productive forces, yet its unregulated expansion tends to aggravate the unbalanced distribution of digital productive forces. In the extension stage, the strong monopoly and domination of digital capital restrain the social attributes and productivity potential of digital factors. Under effective governance, however, the organic integration of digital capital and public capital helps further expand the development space of digital productive forces. Therefore, on the basis of clarifying the current development stage of China’s digital productive forces, we should consolidate the foundation for the formation of digital productive forces by actively guiding and regulating capital behaviors, optimize the growth pattern of digital productive forces by coordinating the empowering and polarizing effects of digital capital, and expand its development space through forward-looking governance systems and institutional frameworks, so as to guide digital capital to better empower the development of China’s digital productive forces.
Professor Chen Yuanyuan and Ph.D. graduate Yueqing Zou from the Department of Labor Economics co-authored the paper Artificial Intelligence Development and Women’s Fertility Intention: Promotion or Suppression?, officially published in Journal of Finance and Economics, a domestic Class B authoritative journal.
Artificial Intelligence Development and Women’s Fertility Intention: Promotion or Suppression?
Journal of Finance and Economics
Vol. 52, No. 8, 2026
The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence has exerted a profound influence on the labor market and may further reshape individual fertility intentions, bringing challenges to generational replacement and sustainable social development. Using data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) in 2014, 2018 and 2022, this paper investigates the impact of AI development on women’s fertility intention. The study finds that AI development significantly reduces women’s ideal number of children. Mechanism analysis shows that AI affects women’s fertility intention through multiple channels including economic factors, household decision-making, family relations and cultural values. Economically, AI raises the opportunity cost of childbearing by boosting women’s employment and their relative income. In terms of household decision-making, AI lowers male spouses’ fertility intention and transmits this effect to women via intra-household bargaining. For family relations, AI reduces women’s interaction with family members and marital satisfaction, making women more prudent about childbearing. Culturally, AI reshapes women’s perceptions of fertility and gender roles, shifting fertility values from obligation to personal choice. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the effect is stronger for highly educated women and for second or higher-order births. Further analysis reveals that greater spousal participation in housework and improved public childcare services can effectively mitigate the negative impact of AI on women’s fertility intention. This paper provides micro-level evidence for understanding sustained fertility decline amid technological change, and offers policy implications for building a fertility-friendly society amid rapid technological iteration.
The School of Economics, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, consistently regards the enhancement of research and innovation capacity as a core driving force for disciplinary development. Following the construction standards for first-class disciplines, faculty members make full use of resources and experience accumulated through years of educational reform. Adhering to the academic orientation rooted in China’s realities with a global vision, they keep advancing research on frontier topics and lay a solid foundation for the comprehensive improvement of the school’s academic competitiveness and disciplinary development.
