Working Paper

Migration and Mechanized Agriculture (Job Market Paper)

Presentations:

  • 2026: Asian and Australasian Society of Labour Economics Conference (PKU, Beijing); ES Australasia Meeting (Adelaide University, Adelaide); Asian SPACE Workshop (SJTU-HKUST, HK); Jobs and Development Conference (HKUST, HK); CES Annual Meeting (SUFE, Chengdu); ES North American Summer Meeting (Emory University, Atlanta); Xi’an Jiaotong University; RCEA International Conference on Economics, Econometrics, and Finance (Universidad Pontificia de Comillas, Madrid); PhD Brownbag (HKU)
  • 2022-2025: PhD Brownbag (×2, HKU); Graduate Seminar (HKU)
Abstract

Farmers may damper from the labor shortage in agricultural production, incentivizing them to transform modernization. This paper documents that population aging increases dramatically over time, especially in rural areas, whereas the responses of the agricultural mechanization, at the micro level, remain relatively stable in the early stage and start to decrease dramatically, which is inconsistent with the remorseless increase in aggregate. A model is proposed to reconcile this puzzling fact, where heterogeneous labor decides where to work and whether to adopt machinery simultaneously under the age-dependent migration cost. I show that the more population aging, the agricultural labor productivity reacts nonlinearly and shows an initial plateau and subsequent negative trend turning at age 40, which is mainly driven by the nonlinear agricultural mechanization. Further, the rapid development of non-agriculture and the decrease of the overall migration cost due to, for example, hukou reform, attracts more labor sort to the non-agricultural sector, combining with the fluctuating machinery price, a higher level of agricultural mechanization can be accommodated in equilibrium in aggregate.

The Farm Problem with Xiaodong Zhu, Yameng Fan, Jiaze Li (Draft available upon request)

Presentations:

  • 2026: 1st Altitude Conference on Growth and Development (Xizang University, Lsaha); CES Presidential Forum 2026 (UIBE, Beijing); Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST, Wuhan); Asian SPACE Workshop (SJTU-HKUST, HK)
Abstract

(Abstract coming soon)

Selected Work in Progress

The US-China Technology Transfer and Economic Growth with Jun Li

Presentations:

  • 2026: 1st Altitude Conference on Growth and Development (Xizang University, Lsaha)

Market Access and Product Design: Evidence from South Korea with Yameng Fan