Wei Sun - Economics - University of California, Riverside

Curriculum Vitae
HOME ADDRESS
3384 Utah Street,
Riverside, CA 92507
Home: (951) 684-4512
Cell: (951) 907-1295
Email: wei.sun@email.ucr.edu
EDUCATION
Wei Sun
Wei Sun
OFFICE ADDRESS
Department of Economics
3125 Sproul Hall
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521-0427
Fax: (951) 787-5685
• Ph.D., Economics, University of California at Riverside, expected June 2005
Dissertation: Essays in Applied Econometrics
Dissertation Chairs: Aman Ullah
• M.A., Economics, University of California at Riverside, December 2003
• B.A., Economics and English, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing, China, June 2000
RESEARCH INTERESTS
• Primary Fields: Applied Econometrics, Development Economics, Applied Macroeconomics
• Secondary Fields: Financial Economics, Forecasting, Labor Economics, International Economics
COMPLETED WORKING PAPERS
[1] “A Semiparametric Analysis of Income Inequality in China”, submitted, September 2004.
[2] “Economic Development and Air Pollution: A Nonparametric Approach”, August 2004.
[3] “Kuznets Hypothesis Reexamined”, submitted, October 2004.
WORK IN PROGRESS
[1] “Coincident and Leading Indicators of the Chinese Stock Market”
[2] “Financial Development and Economic Growth”
[3] “An Investigation of the Efficiency of the Chinese Stock Market”
CONFERENCES
• Economic Representations, University of California Humanities Research Institute and Center for
Ideas and Society, University of California, Riverside, April 2004.
• Annual James Young Colloquium, University of California, Riverside, February 2003
• Econometrics, Political and Development Seminar, University of California, Riverside, 2003
• 5th Annual NBER-CCER Conference---China’s Reform in A Global Perspective, China Center
for Economic Research, Beijing University, Beijing, June 2002
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Curriculum Vitae
Wei Sun
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Instructor
Department of Economics, University of California, Riverside, Summer 2002/2003
Macroeconomic Theory
Teaching Assistant
Department of Economics, University of California, Riverside, Fall 2001-Present
Introduction to Microeconomics, Introduction to Macroeconomics, Intermediate Macroeconomics,
Intermediate Microeconomics, Research and Business Methods, International Trade, Money and
Banking
BUSINESS EXPERIENCE
Research Intern, Deputy General Economist Assistant
China International Industrial and Commerce Co., Ltd., Beijing, China, Summer 2002
Research Intern, Deputy Director Assistant
Imports and Exports Division, People’s Republic of China Economic and Trade Commission, Beijing,
China, Summer 1999
AWARDS
• Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellowship, University of California at Riverside, 2000-2004
• Excellent Student Leadership of Beijing, Education Commission of Beijing, Beijing, 2000
• Philippine National Bank Scholarship, Beijing Foreign Studies University, 1999
• Elizabeth Crookes Scholarship, Beijing Foreign Studies University, 1998
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
American Economic Association, Econometric Society, American Finance Association
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Curriculum Vitae
REFERENCES
Wei Sun
Professor Aman Ullah
Department of Economics
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521-0427
(951) 827-1591
ullah@mail.ucr.edu
Professor Keith Griffin
Department of Economics
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521-0427
(951) 827-4108
griffin@mail.ucr.edu
Professor Azizur Rahman Khan
Department of Economics
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521-0427
(951) 827-1581
khan@mail.ucr.edu
Professor Tae-Hwy Lee
Department of Economics
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521-0427
(909) 827-1509
taelee@mail.ucr.edu
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Curriculum Vitae
RESEARCH SUMMARY
Wei Sun
[1] “A Semiparametric Analysis of Income Inequality in China” (Job Market Paper)
This paper presents a semiparametric analysis of changes in the distribution of Chinese household income
over the period from 1988 to 1995. This analysis adopts the density re-weighting procedure to study how
economic policy reforms and changes in social and demographic factors affect the overall income
inequality. It distinguishes itself from previous literature in two ways. First, it is the first paper that
focuses on the entire distribution of household income, rather than Gini coefficient or some other
summary measures, to study the changes in income inequality in urban China. This approach provides a
visually clear representation of the shape of the income distribution and where in the distribution that
various factors have the greatest impact. The effects of each of factors on changes in various summary
measures of inequality are also computed to compare our results with those in other research. Second, two
important theoretical issues of the counterfactual density estimation methodology are rigorously
examined—how to choose the optimal bandwidth and how to test the difference between counterfactual
and actual densities. The results find that changes in household structure, particularly the declining
proportion of large families, housing welfare, ownership of economic structure, socio-demographic
attributes and economic returns to these attributes contributed to the increase in inequality. These factors
together account for about 70 percent of the observed increase in inequality. The results demonstrate that
secular social and demographic trends are as important as economic policy reforms in explaining changes
in the Chinese distribution of household incomes over the period.
[2] “Economic Development and Air Pollution: A Nonparametric Approach”
This paper examines the empirical interplay between economic growth and CO 2 emissions using
nonparametric methods and panel data. The results demonstrate that relationship between CO 2 and GNP
per capita around the world displays a monotonous upward sloping shape rather than the well-known
inverted-U shape curve which is predicted by the Environmental Kuznets Hypothesis and supported by ad
hoc parametric specification in previous empirical research. Based on this result, I argue that existing
empirical evidence on Environmental Kuznets Hypothesis is highly sensitive to functional form
assumptions and thus might be spurious due to the functional misspecification problem. The
consequent policy implication is that both developed countries and developing countries should
actively make efforts to reduce CO 2 emissions.
[3] “Kuznets Hypothesis Reexamined”
This paper presents a brief review of the recent literature around the Kuznets hypothesis and propose an
explanation for the conflicting empirical results as well as theoretical debates from a methodological
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Curriculum Vitae
Wei Sun
perspective. Specifically, I apply the Kuhnian framework to analyzing some major reasons and features of
changes in the literature. It shows that the components of Kuhn’s analysis closely fit the transition in the
inequality-income literature. This application allows us to make sense of the debate and thus to discover
those things unacknowledged under the surface which are what the real arguments are about.
[4] ““Risk, Return and Efficiency of the Chinese Stock Market”
This paper studies the dynamic behavior of risks and returns in Chinese stock markets. I characterize the
time-series properties of stock-market return and volatility and test the market efficiency hypothesis. I
establish and estimate an empirical model that captures the effect of local and global information
variables on the conditional mean of stock-market returns and characterize the second order conditional
moments using three error generation processes. I find that stock-market volatility is time-varying, mildly
persistent, and is best described by a fat-tailed distribution such as the Stable distribution.
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