Welcome to my website!
I am a Ph.D. candidate in economics at Penn State, working on Microeconomic Theory, Network Economics, Political Economics, and Education Economics.
View my Research Statement on Microeconomic Theory.
You can contact me at yiquntong@psu.edu
I am on the 2025-2026 Job Market.
Working Papers
Shadows of Power: Elite Networks under Authoritarian Purges (Job Market Paper)
Conference Presentations:
EAI GameNets 2026 (Best Paper Award)
Network Science in Economics Conference, April 10-12, 2026, University of Miami
Asia Meeting of the Econometric Society - China, June 19-21, 2026, University of Hong Kong
2nd Berlin PhD Conference in Economics, July 6-8, 2026, Berlin School of Economics
Abstract: We study how political elites form networks under a dictator who can purge. Elites choose an undirected network. The total value sums direct and indirect connections, discounted by distance, and subtracts all link costs. The total is allocated across individuals in proportion to their eigenvector centrality. We introduce a pairwise stable subgame-perfect equilibrium (PS-SPE) to analyze efficiency and stability, and prove existence. Efficiency, the dictator’s payoff, and stability need not coincide. The dictator often prefers a star network even when stability or efficiency selects denser structures. As costs fall, stable networks densify and power balances; as costs rise, stability shifts toward sparser, more centralized structures. These results formalize a dictator’s paradox: structures that maximize control are not always sustainable, and greater centralization at higher costs can be selected by stability, not only by the ruler’s preferences.
We The People: Supervision Network Design of Institutions, joint with Peiran Xiao
Abstract: When government institutions have misaligned interests, what type of political structure can effectively coordinate among them in the worst-case scenario? We study a stylized principal-agent model where agents have bidimensional preferences over the direction and length of the outcome in a Euclidean plane, whereas the principal has a unidimensional preference for the length. Agents choose their directions of action, which collectively determine the outcome. We model the supervision structure as a directed network where a supervisor can make a take-it-or-leave-it offer consisting of a transfer and a direction to his supervisees. In this network, a pure-strategy subgame-perfect ε-equilibrium exists. We show that when there are three agents, a fully connected network is worst-case optimal for the principal.
Higher-Education Expansion and Upper-Secondary Choice: Rural–Urban Divergence in Vocational High School Completion, joint with Zhejian Wang, Ruoming Zhang - Under Review at Economic Modelling
Abstract: This paper examines whether rapid higher-education expansion reshapes earlier educational sorting in tracked systems. Using China's 1999 expansion as the setting, we analyse nationally representative microdata from the 2015 1% Population Sample Survey, which distinguishes academic senior high school from secondary vocational schooling. We exploit cohort-based exposure by comparing birth cohorts that made upper-secondary schooling decisions before the reform with cohorts young enough to adjust afterward, and we estimate difference-in-differences models that contrast rural and urban trends while controlling flexibly for geography. Across specifications, exposed rural cohorts become more likely than their urban counterparts to end schooling at vocational high school. The implied rural-urban widening in vocational high school completion as the highest attained level is about 3 percentage points in our baseline estimates. Event-study results show no comparable pre-reform trend and indicate that the divergence appears with the first exposed cohorts and remains elevated for later cohorts. Overall, the evidence suggests that mass tertiary expansion can generate sizable upstream adjustments within upper-secondary education, with consequences for the composition of terminal schooling in developing and middle-income contexts.
From Seats to Status: China’s 1999 Higher-Education Expansion and Urban-Rural Occupational Mobility, joint with Zhejian Wang, Ruoming Zhang
Abstract: China's 1999 higher-education expansion sharply increased college admissions through a centrally initiated supply shock. We study whether this expansion narrowed the rural-urban divide in occupational outcomes. Using the 2015 1% Population Sample Survey, we introduce a large-language-model-based occupational socioeconomic-status score derived from respondents' text job descriptions. We leverage cohort-based exposure to estimate impacts on rural–urban occupational convergence and education-driven occupational upgrading. We find that post-expansion rural cohorts gain 0.25 points in occupational status relative to urban cohorts, closing roughly 17% of the raw urban-rural gap. IV estimates provide evidence of a causal education channel, with each additional year of schooling raising occupational status by 0.21 points. Supply-side education policy shifts rural cohorts out of low-skill manual work and into skilled trades and basic services, while entry into professional and managerial positions remains unchanged.
Work in Progress
Structure and Stability of Political Parties
This paper introduces a model of political party formation and stability, drawing on the Downsian framework and citizen-candidate literature. We examine how a continuum of politicians, each with distinct ideological positions, form coalitions to create political parties and select leaders. The model captures both ideological voting and competition for non-ideological votes through resource allocation, and introduces the concept of split-proof stability to assess when a party structure resists fragmentation. Our analysis characterizes two-party equilibria and establishes conditions under which party stability is maintained or disrupted, offering new insights into the dynamics of party competition and the evolution of political systems.
Evaluating the Impact of the Community Rating System
This project conducts a causal analysis of the Community Rating System (CRS) and its role in mitigating flood risk across 6,421 communities from 1990 to 2025. Using a staggered Difference-in-Differences design with LASSO-based covariate selection, the study identifies an 11–25% reduction in flood insurance claims among participating jurisdictions. The model further captures the broader economic trade-offs of flood management, documenting an increase in building permits alongside a 3–9% capitalization effect on local home values. These findings provide new evidence on how federal policy incentives shape community resilience and the long-term evolution of coastal and inland housing markets.