Biased and false beliefs -- such as denialism and superstitions -- influence human decision-making, potentially including key individuals that wield considerable economic and political power. In this paper, we document the substantial macro-level impact of leaders' misbeliefs in China, exploiting prevalent Asian traditional beliefs that allow us to link quasi-random, leader-specific spatial biases to regional development within cities. We find that municipal zones perceived as unfavorable to mayors (i.e., subject to mayors’ over-pessimism)  have an average 2 percent lower GDP compared to other zones. Exploiting mayoral reports and administrative micro-level data, we show reduced policy support and public investment as the key drivers. Downstream changes in firms and households further amplify the loss, with a 6% decrease in firm entry, a 4% reduction in the productivity of remaining firms, and a small population decline. Our back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests Chinese mayors' spatial misbeliefs are associated with at least a 0.1% annual GDP loss over the past two decades. Overall, our findings highlight subjective beliefs as an important determinant of leader performance, contributing to a deeper understanding of why leaders matter for economic development.

I study the impact of corruption crackdown on human capital supply for the state, exploiting China's staggered anti-corruption inspections. Using unique applicant data from state organizations, I find that anti-corruption induces positive selection for integrity and prosociality into the state sector, without significantly affecting overall ability. These shifts in supply are associated with enhanced work performance. Changes in occupational preferences corroborate static talent allocation as a salient mechanism, in which treated honest types show higher preferences for state jobs -- even when conditioned on ability and family background. I further document dynamic effects wherein households increase investment in human capital and the integrity of the next generation. Together, these findings highlight reward structures as an important determinant of the state sector's human capacity. 

Presentations/Awards: Stanford DevPEC (2022), NEUDC (2022), ASSA (2023); Rosenstein-Rodan Prize  (2024)

This paper studies the causal impact of risk-taking on public leadership, by exploiting Chinese  zodiac culture that creates within-individual variation in risk appetite. Employing a representative village panel, I find that lower risk-taking of village heads leads to improved governance processes and greater responsiveness. I also observe consistent expenditure changes, with higher public good spending and a comparable decline in administration spending that is prone to misuse. However, risk-averse leaders are also less likely to promote policy innovation. Collectively, risk avoidance can improve leader performance when incentives for responsiveness are limited, with a potential trade-off between accountability and public entrepreneurship.

We study favoritism in the selection of elite scientific talent, by examining the relationship between host institution affiliation and performance in the Chinese Science Olympiad, where a gold medal guarantees a student's admission to top universities. Using hand-collected participant-level data (2003 - 2021), we find that host-affiliated students have a significantly higher winning probability, and the effect is more pronounced in host provinces where corruption norms are more prevalent. We present evidence suggestive of cheating behavior using a portion of the contest vulnerable to information leakage, as well as the centralized post-Olympiad selection outside the control of host provinces. Together, our findings shed light on the crucial role of organizational structure in designing equitable assessment systems for talent. 

Using novel data from Taiwan, we examine the impact of history curricula on national identity. The high school curriculum reform of September 2006 separates the history of Taiwan from Chinese chronology and increases Taiwan-oriented content to transmit Taiwanese identity. We document an unintended ``backlash'' that individuals studying the new curriculum are more likely to hold both greater Taiwanese and Chinese identities. We show endogenous changes in information demand as a prominent mechanism: treated high schoolers show greater identity awareness and acquire more information related to both identities, leading to dual-identity recognition. We further observe consistent attitudinal changes, with milder political views and an increase in votes for median candidates or abstention.