Research Fellow
Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica
Fellow, Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research
Adjunct Professor, Department of Economics, National Taiwan University
Curriculum Vitae Google Scholar IDEAS/RePEc
Working Paper
comments welcome: wthsu (at) econ.sinica.edu.tw; wentai.hsu (at) icloud.com
"Zoning: Externalities or Misallocation?," with Yu-Hsin Ho, Chang-Tai Hsieh, and Yu-Jhih Luo, July 2026.
"Interdependent Development: Market Access and Institutions in a Global Economy," with Xuan Luo and Xianhao Zhu, June 2026. Slides
"Individual Labor Supply, Worker Skills, and Gains from Trade," with Pao-Li Chang and Yi-Fan Chen, June 2026.
"Land-Use Price Wedges in a Spatial Economy: Externalities or Distortions?," with Zheng (Michael) Song and Xin Zou, May 2026
"A Dynamic Quantitative Analysis of Labor Market Implications of Taiwan’s WTO Accession: Skill, Capital, and the China Shock," with Pao-Li Chang and Yi-Fan Chen, January 2025. Online Appendix.
"General Purpose Technology, Growth, and Dynamic Gains from Trade," with Raymond G. Riezman, Ping Wang, and Han Yang, August 2024, NBER Working Paper Version
Journal Publication
"How Evolving Institutions Shaped China's Economic Geography," with Jing Li and Lin Ma, forthcoming, Journal of Economic Geography.
"When Taxi Drivers Meet Dynamic Pricing: A Lesson from Singapore’s JustGrab Program," with Shih-Fen Cheng and Jing Li, forthcoming, Regional Science and Urban Economics. Note.
"Comparative Advantage and Optimal Trade Policy with Strategic Interactions," with Mengmeng Dai, Wei Jin, Yongjin Wang, and Siqiang Yang, International Journal of Industrial Organization, 104, January 2026, 103236.
"Long-Run Belief-Scarring Effects of COVID-19 in a Global Economy," with Hsuan-Chih (Luke) Lin and Han Yang, Economic Theory, 78(3), November 2024, 709-752. (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00199-023-01545-6) SSRN.
"Between Lives and Economy: COVID-19 Containment Policy in Open Economies," with Hsuan-Chih (Luke) Lin and Han Yang, European Economic Review, 157, August 2023, 104512. Working Paper Version. Online Appendix. Talk (Courtesy of VEAMS). Slides.
"Income Inequality, Productivity, and International Trade," with Lin Lu and Pierre M. Picard, Economic Theory, 76, July 2023, 203-249. Working paper.
"Foreign Direct Investment and Industrial Agglomeration: Evidence from China," with Yi Lu, Xuan Luo, and Lianming Zhu, Journal of Comparative Economics, 51(2), June 2023, 610-639. Working Paper Version. Slides
"Innovation, Firm Size Distribution, and Gains from Trade," with Yi-Fan Chen and Shin-Kun Peng, Theoretical Economics, 18(1), January 2023, 341-380. Online Appendix. Earlier working paper.
"Urbanization Policy and Economic Development: A Quantitative Analysis of China’s Differential Hukou Reforms," with Lin Ma, Regional Science and Urban Economics, 91, November 2021, 103639. Online Appendix. Replication Files. Slides. Earlier working paper. Media Mention: The Economist, Jiemian (in Mandarin).
"Common Power Laws for Cities and Spatial Fractal Structures," with Tomoya Mori and Tony E. Smith, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), 117(12), March 24, 2020, pp. 6469-6475. Earlier working paper: arXiv:1907.12289. Slides. Movie.
"Competition, Markups, and Gains from Trade: A Quantitative Analysis of China Between 1995 and 2004," with Yi Lu and Guiying Laura Wu, Journal of International Economics, 122, January 2020, 103266. Earlier working paper. Slides.
"Determinants of Urban Land Supply in China: How Do Political Factors Matter?," with Xiaolu Li, Yang Tang, and Jing Wu, Asian Development Review, 34(2), September 2017, pp. 152-183.
"Allocative Efficiency, Mark-ups, and the Welfare Gains from Trade," with Thomas J. Holmes and Sanghoon Lee, Journal of International Economics, 94(2), November 2014, pp. 195-206. NBER working paper version.
"Optimal City Hierarchy: A Dynamic Programming Approach to Central Place Theory," with Thomas J. Holmes and Frank Morgan, Journal of Economic Theory, 154, November 2014, pp. 245-273.
"Does Competition Lead to Customization?" with Travis Ng and Yi Lu, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 106, October 2014, pp. 10-28.
"The Fundamental Law of Highway Congestion Revisited: Evidence from National Expressways in Japan," with Hongliang Zhang, Journal of Urban Economics, 81, May 2014, pp. 65-76.
"Trade, Firm Selection, and Industrial Agglomeration," with Ping Wang, Regional Science and Urban Economics, 42(6), November 2012, pp. 975-986.
"Central Place Theory and City Size Distribution," Economic Journal, 122, September 2012, pp. 903-932. Austin Robinson Memorial Prize for the best paper published in the Economic Journal in 2012 by an author who is within five years of receiving their PhD. Check out a very concise video introduction of this paper made by the Royal Economic Society.
"Geography, Trade and Power-law Phenomena," with Pao-Li Chang, in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Economics and Finance, January 2020. Oxford University Press.
"Central Place Theory and Power Laws for Cities," with Xin Zou, in The Mathematics of Urban Morphology, 2019. Springer Nature.
“Singapore’s Urban Form and its Implications on Transport and City Development: A Cross-City Perspective,” with Nicholas Wei Siong Chiang and Marilyn Yiling Song, in The Singapore Economy: Dynamism and Inclusion by Hian Teck Hoon (ed.), 2021, Routledge.