My Past

• An assistant professor at Boston College (2011-19)
• A doctoral student at University of Colorado (2005-11)
• A graduate student at CCER, Peking University (2004-05)
• A college student at Zhejiang University (2000-04)
• A young man who dreamed a lot (????-present)

My Papers

• “China's Trade Retaliation: Factuals vs. Counterfactuals.” (with Gary Lyn and Xing Xu)
  • Current draft: [PDF] and [Slides]
  • For better or for worse!
• “Trump, China, and the Republicans.” (with Yi Lu, Pasquale Sgro, and Xing Xu)
  • Current draft: [PDF]
  • This long story is as short as 53 pages
• “Lexicographic Bias in International Trade.” (with Hua Cheng and Cui Hu)
  • Journal of International Economics, 2021
  • “Buy your apples from Abraham Aardvark” (Marginal Revolution)
  • Find Abraham's apples in the appended structural model
• “Extreme Weather and Long-term Health.” (with Wang-sheng Lee)
  • Journal of Health Economics, 2021
  • Dusty data from two millennia of Chinese elites
• “HIV Infections and Nightlight Luminosity.” (with Pratibha Gautam)
  • Economics Letters, 2021
  • “So shines a good deed in a weary world!” (Shakespeare, 1600)
• “The Production Economics of the Economics Production.” (with Yushan Hu)
  • Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 2021
  • Is economic knowledge produced in an economically efficient way?
• “Alphabetic Norm and Research Output.” (with Ang Li)
  • Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2021
  • Ang Li and Ben Li explain why economists use alphabetic author orders
• “The Production Life Cycle.” (with Yibei Liu)
  • Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 2018
  • Products have life cycles (R. Vernon), and so does their production process
• “The Economics of Nationalism.” (with Xiaohuan Lan)
  • American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2015
  • Nationalism is a trade cost problem. Let us convince you theoretically and empirically
• “Shanghai's Trade, China's Growth.” (with Wolfgang Keller and Carol Shiue)
  • IMF Economic Review, 2013
  • Universal gravitation applies to Shanghai as well as to the solar system
• “Multinational Production and Choice of Technologies.”
  • Economics Letters, 2010
  • Multinationals are biased, technologically
• “Geographic Concentration and Vertical Disintegration.” (with Yi Lu)
  • Journal of Urban Economics, 2009
  • How about getting closer and buying more from each other

My Preaching

• Statistics I & II (fun and more fun)
• Microeconomic theory (not fun but necessary)
• International trade (fun globally)
• Urban economics (fun locally)