Nancy Qian

Nancy Qian is the James J. O'Connor Professor at Kellogg MEDS and the founding director of China Lab, a part of Northwestern's Global Poverty Research Lab. She is a native of Shanghai, China, and holds a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT. Prior to Kellogg, Professor Qian taught at Yale University and Brown University, and was a post-doctoral fellow of the prestigious Harvard Academy Scholars program.

Her research provides empirical evidence for a set of core questions in development economics that broadly fall into four sub-categories: demography and development, geography and development, institutions and development and culture and development. Her works in the first category include studies of the economic determinants of missing women, the effects of changes in family size on child educational attainment, the long-run effects of famine on health and labor supply, the historical effect of the Columbian Exchange on population growth and urbanization, and the extent to which human capital differences can explain cross-country income differences. Her work in the second category includes studies that explore the long-run effects of climate change on conflict and the long-run influence of agricultural productivity on economic growth and conflict. Her work in the third category includes a study of the institutional causes of China's Great Famine, the determinants and consequences of elections in autocratic regimes, the determinants and consequences of humanitarian aid, understanding the government's influence on the media, and the rapid economic development in China. In the final category, she has worked on understanding how the forces of social trust and political institutions interact to determine political and economic outcomes in the United States, China and across countries.

Professor Qian's work includes extensive analysis of survey data, as well as historical data and field experiments. A recurring theme in in her research is to understand the difference between short and long-run effects, and endogenous responses to economic incentives. She is an expert of the Chinese economy. Her research has been published in top academic journals and featured in media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and National Public Radio. She is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, such as the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, the Kiel Global Excellence Award and National Science Foundation grants. She serves in several editorial positions and has consulted for development agencies such as The World Bank, the Global Development Network and the China Development Bank.

In her spare time, she enjoys traveling, art, reading, TV, sports and cooking for her family and friends. She's a fan of the Red Sox, Patriots and Roger Federer.

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy, 2005, Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Bachelor of Arts, 2001, Economics, Government, Japanese and Mathematics, University of Texas at Austin, High Honors

Academic Positions

• Associate Professor, Economics, Yale University, 2013-present
• Visiting Scholar, Economics, Stern School of Business, New York University, 2016-present
• Visiting Scholar, Economics, Booth Business School, University of Chicago, 2015-present
• Visiting Scholar, Economics, Stern School of Business, New York University, 2014-present
• Affiliate, Council on East Asian Studies, Yale University, 2014-present
• Affiliate, Leitner Center for Political Economy, Yale University, 2014-present
• Assistant Professor, Economics, Yale University, 2009-2013
• Visiting Scholar, Industrial Relations Section, Princeton University, 2011-2012
• Visiting Scholar, Booth Business School, University of Chicago, 2009-present
• Visiting Scholar, Economics, Harvard University, 2007-2009
• Harvard Academy Scholar, Harvard University, 2007-2009
• Assistant Professor, Economics, Brown University, 2005-2005
• Affiliate, Populations Studies and Training Center, Brown University, 2005-2009

Awards

• Keynote: University of International Business and Economics for The Third Beijing Interna-tional Trade and Investment Symposium: Trade Institutions and Development
• Keynote: Shanghai Lixin University of Accounting and Finance
• Keynote: Peking University CCER Summer Institute

Editorial Positions

• Editorial Board, VOX China, 2017
• Editorial Board, American Economic Journal – Applied, 2017
• Editorial Board, Review of International Organizations, 2017
• Associate Editor, Economica, 2015
• Associate Editor, The Journal of European Economics, 2013
• Associate Editor, The Journal of Development Economics, 2010

Teaching Interests

• Economic Development, Political Economy, Economies of the Population, Development Economics, Empirical Methods, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Population