I am a postdoctoral fellow at IGIER, Bocconi.

I am a theorist with focus in decision theory and information economics. I am motivated in understanding the process of how economic agents perceive risk, uncertainty and information, update beliefs, and make corresponding economic decisions.

Prior to joining IGIER, I obtained my PhD at the Department of Economics, National University of Singapore (NUS), and my bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physics and double degree in economics from Tsinghua University. Here is my CV.

Working Papers

1. Consistency and Pairwise Consistency (with Yi-Chun Chen)

We study the finite Harsanyi model where each agent’s type is associated with a posterior belief over some fundamental uncertainty and type profiles of other agents. We show that if the agents’ posteriors have full support, the model admits a common prior (i.e., is consistent in Harsanyi’s sense) if and only if any pair of agents have a common prior. We extend the result to Aumann models where posteriors need not have full support but satisfy a condition called double irreducibility which strengthens the irreducibility condition of Samet (1998). Our results imply circumstances where characterizations of consistency such as the no-trade theorems and the convergence of higher-order expectations reduce to the corresponding characterizations for pairwise consistency.

2. Correlation Preference (with Yi-Chun Chen, Soo Hong Chew)

Correlatedness between lotteries arising from social situations is ubiquitous. We propose a general utility representation for binary choice between pairs of possibly correlated lotteries rather than adopt the common practice of treating them as being independent. We axiomatize two classes of preference corresponding respectively to the correlation counterparts of the independence axiom for EU and to two axioms in non-EU characterizing weighted utility: betweenness and projective independence. The resulting correlation expected utility and correlation weighted utility can be discriminated using recent evidence of correlation-sensitive Allais behavior which supports the latter model rather than the former.

Work in Progress

1. Belief Consistency and Dutch Book (with Yi-Chun Chen)

2. Correlation Preference Aggregation (with Yi-Chun Chen, Soo Hong Chew)

3. Age Discrimination in Hiring: Evidence from Online Job Ads (with Qinyue Luo, Liaoliang Zhang)

Teaching

Teaching assistant for PhD modules: Microeconomic Theory, Advanced Microeconomic Theory, Mathematical Economics (NUS).