Work in Progress

Stressed About GPA? Uncertainty and Limited Academic Exploration in College (JMP)
Presented at: 2024 Midwest Economic Association, 2024 Society of Labor Economics, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

This paper examines the impact of uncertainty in academic ability and the incentive to maintain a high cumulative GPA on college course and major choices. Using data from the Texas Education Research Center, the research demonstrates that students' course selections respond to the grades they receive, indicating a process of self-discovery and adjustment throughout their college journey. Moreover, a difference-in-differences analysis using a policy variation of continuing pass/fail grading option during the COVID pandemic reveals that students increased STEM course enrollment when the school continued to provide pass/fail grading option, largely driven by female students (3% increase) and students with low-income background (1% increase). The study also introduces a dynamic model of college course and major choice, incorporating factors such as ability learning and risk aversion from drawing bad grades. Additionally, the research highlights the implications of policies aimed at reducing uncertainty in academic ability and equalizing grading standards across departments in college, which can address disparities in course choices across different socio-demographic groups. 

The Effect of Bilingual Education: Long-run Student Outcomes and Spillover Effects (with Kevin Hunt)
Presented at: 2024 Midwest Economic Association (SOLE Session)

A large and growing share of students arrive at school as English language learners (ELL). In Texas, schools provide bilingual education or an English as a second language programs for these students. Using a regression discontinuity design based on a quasi-experimental policy variation in Texas, this paper examines the effect of exposure to bilingual education in 1st grade on students' test scores and college enrollment. We find no effect of bilingual education in first grade on elementary school standardized test scores but large significant effects on college enrollment for both ELL and non-ELL students: bilingual education increases four-year university enrollment for ELL and non-ELL students by 6.4 and 6.8 p.p., respectively. The positive effects for both student groups in the long-run suggests that bilingual education has positive effects that are not well measured by short-run test scores for ELL students, and these effects spill-over to the outcomes on non-ELL students.

Equity-Efficiency Implications of Output-Based College Resource Allocation (with Chao Fu and Jesse Gregory)

Pre Doctoral Work

Korea Patent Data Project (KoPDP): Contents and Methods (with Jihong Lee, Sangdong Kim, Keunsang Song, and Jae Yu Jung)
Published in: The Korean Economic Forum, 12(4), 125-181, 2019
Resources: Harvard Dataverse 

In this paper, we describe the contents and methods of “Korea Patent DataProject (KoPDP)”. The project collects all utility patents granted from the Korea Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) for the period 1948-2016 and the US Patentand Trademark Office (USPTO) for the period 1976-2017. The project alsomatches their assignees to firms in DataGuide 5.0, a Korean financial database.The resulting dataset includes total 14,803 listed and non-listed Korean firmsmatched with their Korean and US patents, in addition to a host of accountingand financial information. Over 45% of all sample KIPO patents and 87% of USpatents assigned to Korean assignees are matched. We explain the detail of ourmatching procedures and also provide a coherent industry classification system for both sets of patents.

Forth Industrial Revolution and Innovative Capacity of South Korea: Comparative Analysis of Major Industrial Nations with US Patent Data, 1976-2015 (with Jihong Lee and Daeyoung Jeong)
Published in: The Bank of Korea Economic Analysis, 24, 37-81, 2018

This paper purports to scrutinize the evolving trends of major technologies that have shaped the world's technology frontier, and at the same time, measure relative standings of major industrial nations in their innovative capacity in production of those technologies. We consider all (over 5 million) utility patents granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) over the period of 1976-2015. In analysis, we find the continued dominance of US, the steady performance of Japan, the signs of European decline, and the emergence of new economies that include Korea, Taiwan and Israel. By considering the most popular technologies per each decade, we observe a clear pattern in the evolution of world economic structure, most notably, the IT revolution. Interestingly, it is precisely in these IT-related technologies in which Korea have performed especially well. In the fastest growing technologies of the most recent decade, however, Korea's performance thus far bucks this rosy trend. Korea's innovative capacity is not as evenly distributed across all technologies as other advanced nations. US, Japan, Europe, and other Western economies, as well as Israel, all exhibit solid and steady performance in all our rankings.