Justin J. Hong
Welcome! I am a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at Boston University. My research focuses on the personnel and organizational economics of the state, with broader interests in the human capital and cultural determinants of development.
I am on the job market in AY 2024-2025.
Fields of Interest
Development, Political Economy; Labor Economics, Behavioral Economics
Contact Information:
Email: hjihao@bu.edu
Mailing: 270 Bay State Road, Boston, MA 02215, USA
Job Market Paper
The Costs of Leader Biases: Evidence from Superstitious Chinese Mayors (with Yuheng Zhao) [Link]
Presentations: CES (2024), IAAE (2024), AMES (2024), NBER Dev Program Meeting (2024), CEPR Paris (2024), ASSA & NAWM-ES (2025), PacDEV (2025)
Subjective beliefs – many of which are non-factual or false – influence human decision-making, potentially including key individuals that wield considerable power. This paper documents for the first time the macro-level impact of leaders’ non-factual beliefs, exploiting prominent Chinese 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 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 house holds 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 such non-factual beliefs of Chinese mayors 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 that matters for economic development.
Publications
Not Always a Panacea: History Education and Identity-Building in Taiwan (with Yuhan Lyu)
[Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2025] [*Pre-PhD research: Link]
We study the impact of history curricula on national identity in Taiwan. 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. Our analysis suggests endogenous changes in information demand as a prominent mechanism: treated high schoolers show greater identity awareness and acquire more information related to both identities. We further observe consistent attitudinal changes, with milder political views and an increase in votes for median candidates or abstention.
Working Papers
Corruption and Human Capital Supply for the State [Link]
[R&R at Journal of Labor Economics]
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)
Risk-Taking and Public Leadership: Evidence from Chinese Villages [Link]
[R&R at Journal of Development Economics]
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.
Host Favoritism and Talent Selection in Chinese Science Olympiads (with Xuan Li) [Link]
[R&R at Journal of Law, Economics & Organization]
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.
We study the impact of China’s Southbound Bureaucrat Program (1948-1950), the world’s largest state workforce migration – which sent around100,000 front-line bureaucrats to newly liberated South China. Digitizing historical records, we characterize positive selection on bureaucrats’ socialist ideology. We find southbound bureaucrats foster a more pro-socialist development trajectory over half a century. In the short run, they better promote communist policies. In the longer run, more affected regions have lower inequality and greater welfare provision, likely attributed to stronger state interventionism and human capacity. Further analysis suggests bureaucrats’ socialist ideology plays a pivotal role: Amid post-1978 top-down market reforms, they under-perform in de-collectivization and privatization but still excel in promoting pro-socialist policies. Their influence persists via local personnel and cultural spillovers. Collectively, our findings show that bureaucrats can shape short and longer-run development trajectories over time.
Funding: BU GDP Field Fellowship, Manual A. Abdala Fund, RUC Scientific Research Fund
Work in Progress
Legal Capacity and State-Building [Abstract]
Licensed Corruption (with Yiming Cao, Raymond Fisman, Xuan Li, and Michael Luca) [IRB approved]
Robots and State Capacity (with Yiming Cao)