Xinhao Dong (Jack)
PhD Candidate in Economics
at Simon Fraser University

Financial Liberalization and the Effectiveness of Reserve Policy: Evidence from China’s 2015 Deposit Rate Reform

Working paper (2025). This paper studies how the removal of China’s deposit-rate ceiling changed the transmission of reserve-requirement-ratio policy through the banking system. Using bank-level difference-in-differences evidence, I show that deposit rates became more responsive to RRR changes after liberalization, even as average deposit rates declined. To rationalize these findings, I develop a structural deposit-pricing model with reserve requirements and imperfect bank competition. The results highlight a dual effect of liberalization: stronger monetary transmission through the deposit channel, but also greater pressure on bank profitability, especially for large banks.

Pension Promises, Fertility, and Debt Sustainability

Working paper (2026). This paper studies how pension promises can affect fertility decisions and, through them, the long-run sustainability of public debt. I develop an overlapping-generations model with endogenous fertility, pay-as-you-go pensions, and debt rollover. The model shows that the same economy can feature multiple demographic steady states, including a low-fertility equilibrium in which debt is fragile and a high-fertility equilibrium in which the future tax base is more stable. The paper highlights how pension design can reshape demographic incentives and thereby alter the fiscal capacity of future generations.

Interest Rates, Moneyness, and the Fisher Equation

with Lucas Herrenbrueck and Zijian Wang

Working paper (2026). We revisit the Fisher equation by distinguishing between a hypothetical perfectly illiquid safe asset and the liquid safe assets that are actually used in monetary-policy implementation. In standard applications, short-term nominal interest rates are often treated as if they price an illiquid bond, even though many safe assets also provide liquidity or collateral services. We show that this moneyness component changes the relationship between nominal rates, inflation, and consumption growth. The framework helps explain why empirical tests of the Fisher equation often perform poorly and offers a clearer interpretation of how monetary policy affects asset prices and financial markets.

Strategic Obfuscation under Adaptive Censorship: A Game-Theoretic Framework

with Yuqi Hu

Working paper (2025). This paper develops a game-theoretic framework for studying censorship and circumvention as an adaptive strategic interaction. The circumventor chooses obfuscation intensity, which affects detectability, while the censor chooses how aggressively to block suspicious traffic. The model characterizes equilibria in both one-shot and repeated settings and derives incentive-compatibility conditions under which sustained obfuscation can arise. The analysis also shows how traffic variance and seasonality can become strategic tools, especially when risk-averse censors face uncertainty about classification errors and collateral damage.

Pensions, Migration, and Three-Generation Family Reorganization

with Yang Li

Working paper (2026). Using CHARLS panel data, we study how pension integration affects household organization, migration, and elderly well-being in rural China. The project examines whether changes in pension access alter healthcare utilization, medical spending, and the allocation of caregiving responsibilities across generations. By linking pension reform to three-generation family arrangements, the paper sheds light on how public transfers can reshape private support networks, elderly labor supply, and household responses to population aging.

Revealed Son Preference and Fertility Continuation in Low-Fertility China

Working paper (2026) Using China Family Panel Studies household rosters from 2010 to 2022, I reconstruct mother-level fertility histories to study whether son preference remains behaviorally important in low-fertility China. A first daughter raises second-birth progression by 14.5 percentage points, and first-two-daughter status raises third-birth progression by 31.4 percentage points. The key test compares first-two-child sequences: third-birth progression is much higher after two daughters than after two sons or mixed-sex births, separating son-preference stopping from a generic preference for sibling sex variety. The continuation response is concentrated among rural, agricultural-hukou, lower-education, lower-income, and earlier-cohort families. I also examine education spending and other family outcomes, finding that downstream investment consequences are more limited and measurement-sensitive than the fertility response itself.