I am an Assistant Professor at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (SUFE), School of Economics.

​My research interests are labor and development economics. I obtained my Ph.D. from University of Maryland, College Park, and was a student affiliate at Maryland Population Research Center. I received my B.A. and M.A. from Tsinghua University.

I teach Big Data in Economics and Applied Microeconometrics at SUFE.

Contact: luosaiecon[at]gmail[dot]com

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Publications

1. Curriculum, Political Participation, and Career Choices (with Hongbin Li and Yang Wang). Accepted at Review of Economics and Statistics. [PDF] | [SSRN]. Aug 2025.​

2. Toward an Understanding of the Returns to Cognitive Skill Across Cohorts (with Judith Hellerstein and Sergio Urzua). Accepted at Journal of Political Economy: Microeconomics. [PDF] | [NBER WP] | [SSRN] | [The Macro Roundup]. Nov 2025.
​    ​Selected Presentations: Chicago, The World Bank, UIUC, U of Cambridge, GWU, SUNY-Buffalo, GMU, SED 2023.

Working papers

1. Money and Monitoring: Evidence on Improving Worker Effort (with Jing Cai and Shing-Yi Wang). Under Review. [PDF] | [NBER WP] | [SSRN] | [AEA RCT Registry] | [VoxChina].  Jun 2025. 
​    Selected Presentations: NBER SI 2025, BREAD 2025, Columbia University, NYU-Shanghai, Wharton, Yale-IGC.

2. More than a Degree: China’s College Expansion and the Marriage Market (with Ming Fang). R&R at Journal of Comparative Economics. [PDF] | [SSRN]. Jun 2025. 
    Selected Presentations: SOLE 2023, ES NASM 2023, ES Asian 2023, Duke-Kunshan.

3. Racial Gaps in the Early Careers of Two Cohorts of American Men.​ [PDF] | [SSRN].
    Selected Presentations: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, PAA 2020, ASSA 2021, AEFP 2021.

​Selected work in progress

1. Ethnic Neighborhoods and Assimilation: Evidence from Full Count Historical Census Data (with Nathan Schiff and Tianran Dai)
    Selected Presentations: UEA 2025, SOLE 2025, CUHK-SZ, Peking HSBC, U of Alberta, SJTU, Fudan U.

2. Role Models and Gender Gaps in STEM (with Hongbin Li)