Yuheng Zhao

Yuheng Zhao is a Summer in the Field Fellow, 2022 and a Ph.D. student in the Department of Economics at Boston University. He received his B.A. in Economics and M.A. in Economics from Peking University. His research focuses on development and labor economics.

For his Summer in the Field Fellowship, Yuheng plans to explore how the assignment of non-local officials may influence the state capacity and the long-term development. China’s Southbound Official program in the early 1950s provide a unique natural experiment, which sent around more than 80,000 cadres to the newly liberated south China. Those southbound officials formed the largest migration of officials in the world, and were believed to have greatly shaped the local development policy. He plans to collect information on social-economic development and policy implementation at the county level. At the same time, Yuheng will cooperate with a survey team and collect information on individuals’ identities, trust in government and attitudes on redistribution programs.