David Y. Yang
Research Associate
Harvard University
Department of Economics
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An interconnected world increases economic efficiency while giving certain countries leverage over others. We aim to describe and understand international power stemming from trade. Using an illustrative model of trade with possibilities of bilateral disputes and ex-post hold-ups, we highlight that...
Author(s) - David Y. Yang
Autocracy 2.0, exemplified by modern China, is economically robust, technologically advanced, globally engaged, and controlled through subtle and sophisticated methods. What defines Chinas political economy, and what drives Autocracy 2.0? What is its future direction? I start by discussing two key...
Venture capital plays an important role in funding and shaping innovation outcomes, characterized by investors deep knowledge of the technology, industry, and institutions, as well as their long-running relationships with the entrepreneurship and innovation community. China, in its pursuit of global...
May 1, 2024 - Chapter
Venture capital plays an important role in funding and shaping innovation outcomes, characterized by investors deep knowledge of the technology, industry, and institutions, as well as their long-running relationships with the entrepreneurship and innovation community. China, in its pursuit of global...
Global innovation and entrepreneurship has traditionally been dominated by a handful of high-income countries, especially the US. This paper investigates the international consequences of the rise of a new hub for innovation, focusing on the dramatic growth of high-potential entrepreneurship and...
We document three facts about the global diffusion of surveillance AI technology, and in particular, the role played by China. First, China has a comparative advantage in this technology. It is substantially more likely to export surveillance AI than other countries, and particularly so as compared...
Citizens have long taken to the streets to demand change, expressing political views that may otherwise be suppressed. Protests have produced change at local, national, and international scales, including spectacular moments of political and social transformation. We document five new empirical...
Author(s) - Marcella Alsan, Luca Braghieri, Sarah Eichmeyer, Minjeong Joyce Kim, Stefanie Stantcheva & David Y. Yang
Concerns have been raised about the demise of democracy, possibly accelerated by pandemic-related restrictions. Using a survey experiment involving 8,206 respondents from five Western democracies, we find that subjects randomly exposed to information regarding civil liberties infringements...
Can frontier innovation be sustained under autocracy? We argue that innovation and autocracy can be mutually reinforcing when: (i) the new technology bolsters the autocrats power; and (ii) the autocrats demand for the technology stimulates further innovation in applications beyond those benefiting...
Many governments have engaged in policy experimentation in various forms to resolve uncertainty and facilitate learning. However, little is understood about the characteristics of policy experimentation, and how the structure of experimentation may affect policy learning and policy outcomes. We aim...
Peoples perceptions about others play an important role in shaping their own attitudes and behaviors, as well as social norms more broadly. This review presents a meta-analysis of the recent empirical literature that examines perceptions about others in the field. We document a number of stylized...
Author(s) - Marcella Alsan, Luca Braghieri, Sarah Eichmeyer, Minjeong Joyce Kim, Stefanie Stantcheva & David Y. Yang
Major crises from terrorist attacks to epidemic outbreaks bring the trade-off between individual civil liberties and societal well-being into sharp relief. In this paper, we study how willing citizens are to restrict civil liberties to improve public health conditions in the context of the COVID...
Developing AI technology requires data. In many domains, government data far exceeds in magnitude and scope data collected by the private sector, and AI firms often gain access to such data when providing services to the state. We argue that such access can stimulate commercial AI innovation in part...
August 12, 2020 - Article
One of the most extreme attempts in history to eliminate advantages of the elite and eradicate economic and educational inequality succeeded only in the short term. Guangyu Huang's grandfather was a rich landlord in Guangdong, China, who lost most of his land and assets during the Communist...
US voters exaggerate the differences in attitudes held by Republicans and Democrats on a range of socioeconomic and political issues, and greater perceived polarization is associated with greater political engagement and affective polarization. In this paper, we examine the drivers of such perceived...
Can efforts to eradicate inequality in wealth and education eliminate intergenerational persistence of socioeconomic status? The Chinese Communist Revolution and Cultural Revolution aimed to do exactly that. Using newly digitized archival records and contemporary census and household survey data, we...
Author(s) - Hunt Allcott, Levi Boxell, Jacob C. Conway, Matthew Gentzkow, Michael Thaler & David Y. Yang
We study partisan differences in Americans response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Political leaders and media outlets on the right and left have sent divergent messages about the severity of the crisis, which could impact the extent to which Republicans and Democrats engage in social distancing and...
Beliefs about whether effort pays off govern some of the most fundamental choices individuals make. This paper uses Chinas Cultural Revolution to understand how these beliefs can be affected, how they impact behavior, and how they are transmitted across generations. During the Cultural Revolution,...
The decision to protest is strategic: an individual's participation is a function of her beliefs about others' turnout. Models of protest often assume strategic complementarity; however, the challenge of collective action suggests strategic substitutability. We conduct the first field experiment...
We study the causal effect of school curricula on students' stated beliefs and attitudes. We exploit a major textbook reform in China that was rolled out between 2004 and 2010 with the explicit intention of shaping youths' ideology. To measure its effect, we present evidence from a novel survey we...
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