Min ZHU Contact Information GATE

Min ZHU

Contact Information GATE – UMR 5824 93, Chemin des Mouilles 69130 Ecully (France)

Email : kittyzhm@gmail.com Tel : + 33 (0) 4 72 86 61 16 Fax : +33 (0) 4 72 86 60 90 References:

Professor Yan Chen University of Michigan ESA President-Elect yanchen@umich.edu

Professor Marie Claire Villeval GATE-CNRS

ESA European Vice President villeval@gate.cnrs.fr

Professor Stéphane Robin GATE-CNRS

robin@gate.cnrs.fr

Education

Ph.D. Candidate in Economics, GATE (CNRS-Université de Lyon), France, 2010 to present Thesis Title: “Essays in Matching Markets”

Expected Completion Date: April 2015

B.A. with honors, Economics, Beijing Normal University (北京师范大学), 2007 Master (exchange program) with 1

Rank, Quantitative Economics, GATE, 2010 M.A., Labor Economics, Beijing Normal University (北京师范大学保送), 2011

Visiting Positions

Visiting Researcher, School of Information, University of Michigan, Oct. - Dec. 2011 Visiting Researcher, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, Jan. - May 2012 Summer Institute on Bounded Rationality, Max-Planck, Berlin, July 2011

Summer Institute in Behavioral Economics, National University of Singapore, July 2012 Course on Market Design, ESEI, University of Zurich, Dec. 2013

Research and Teaching Fields

Primary: Applied Economics, Market Design, Experimental Economics

Secondary: Behavioral Economics, Labor Economics, Economics of Education

Scientific Affiliations

“Matching in Practice” for European Research Economics Network on Matching Practices http://www.matching-in-practice.eu/

Economic Science Association (ESA)

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Publications

“College Admissions in China: A Mechanism Design Perspective” (single author), China Economic Review, Volume 30, September 2014, Pages 618–631.

Working Papers

“Experience Transmission: Truth-telling Adoption in Matching” (Job Market Paper)

Abstract: In real-life matching problem, boundedly rational people may engage in strategic behavior under the Deferred Acceptance mechanism, resulting in unstable outcome and reducing overall welfare. How to reduce strategic behavior is thus of importance for field implementation. I address this issue in a laboratory experiment by looking at whether highly experienced people can transmit what they have learned and encourage new participants to reveal their true preferences (i.e., best strategy), as people in reality usually consult those who have participated in this one-shot game. In this experiment, subjects repeatedly play the matching game induced by the Deferred Acceptance mechanism for a finite number of periods, and then offer advice about best strategies to their successors. Participants in succeeding sessions are either given advice from their predecessors or observe histories from previous sessions. I find that predecessors would like to transmit what they have learned to their successors by giving advice on truth-telling behavior. Subjects are also more likely to play truthfully when learning from their peers in previous sessions, either through advice or histories. Moreover, advice works significantly better than histories. This implies that policy makers can encourage real people to adopt truth-telling in the field by simply providing them with collections of good advice from people who have already participated in matching market.

“Matching in the Large: An Experimental Study” (with Yan Chen, Ming Jiang, Onur Kesten and Stéphane Robin)

Abstract: Understanding the performance of canonical matching mechanisms in the large has both theoretical and practical implications. In this paper, we study the performance of the Boston and the Deferred Acceptance (DA) mechanism in the laboratory when the scale of the market increases. When the number of students per match increases from 4 to 40, the proportion of truth-telling significantly increases under the DA but decreases under the Boston mechanism, leading to a significant decrease in the efficiency gap but no change in the stability gap between the two mechanisms. However, further increasing the scale to 4,000 students per match has no effect on individual behavior or the aggregate performance. Our results indicate that “large" might be much smaller than predicted in the theoretical literature.

Research Papers in Progress:

“Partnership Formation through Network: An Experiment” (with Francis Bloch and Stéphane Robin)

This paper investigates the process of partnership formation in a social network in the

laboratory. We consider a society of agents who are organized in a social network which

evolves over time, as agents will delete links and leave the network. At any discrete time, one

agent is chosen randomly to request a favor from a partner, and if the favor is granted, the link

between two agents is formed. We want to test in the laboratory whether players are

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sufficiently patient and whether maximum number of pairs is formed accordingly, when encountering real people with real incentive in real situation.

“Information and Student Placement Problem”

Abstract: In this paper, we study the college admission procedure in China under the framework of student placement problem. As the first step analysis, we present a simple version of the story compared to the real-world complexity, but capturing the key aspect of problem. The paper gives both theoretical and experimental investigations on two mechanisms - the Boston Mechanism, and the Serial Dictatorship Mechanism in ex post and interim point of view. Our experimental results are consistent with the theory, suggesting that the Serial Dictatorship Mechanism outperforms the Boston Mechanism in terms of strategy- proof and elimination justified envy in both information settings. However, the efficiency level in Boston Mechanism is on average higher than the Serial Dictatorship Mechanism, but it is not statistically significant.

“Information Acquisition and Multi-stage Matching”

The real-life matching market is characterized by incomplete information and large market, in which boundedly rational agents interact with each other. Thus, it is doubtful whether simultaneous one-shot game is able to achieve theoretical desired outcomes in real-life practice. In this paper, we consider multiple-stage matching process in which the matching game is repeated for multiple rounds and outcome in each round is tentative until last round.

Players are informed of matching outcome in each round, so that they can make decisions conditional on previous outcomes. Aggregated information about matching market may provide players with a better sense of what their rivals’ choices are likely to be and help them modify mistakes or initial expectations. In a large market presumably such a pre-admission procedure wouldn’t give much strategic incentive for manipulation, so its results would accurately reflect some things about the state of the market.

Other Research Paper

“Social-family Network and Off-farm Job Opportunity: Empirical Evidence in China” (in Chinese)

Abstract: Off-farm employment in rural China can promote rural economic growth and reduce income inequality. This paper is aimed to investigate how social-family network affects the probability to obtain off-farm job, using rural data from 2002 Chinese Household Income Project (CHIPS). In this paper, I construct “ratio of household gifts expenditure in year 2002”

and “village level off-farm employment rate in year 1998” as proxy of social network, and use

“Spouse father’s social status in land reform” as IV. Results of 2SLS estimation show that

increasing the size of social network will significantly increase the probability of having off-

farm job. Education level, whether Communist Party member and male also have

significantly effects. Therefore, public policies should focus on providing access to off-farm

job information, increasing human capital investment, and providing female job opportunities.

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Research Presentations:

Behavioral and Experimental Economics Workshop (2011, 2012), Congress of the French Economics Association (2013), European ESA meeting (2014), French Association of Experimental Economics (2013), SEBA-GATE Workshop (2011, 2013)

Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships:

Award of Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad (highly selective), CSC China, 2014 Doctoral Fellowship, Ministère Français de la Recherche, 2010-2013

Doctoral Exchange Scholarship, Université de Lyon, 2011

The Best Award for “Undergraduate Research”, Beijing Normal University, 2005 Scholarship for Undergraduate, Beijing Normal University, 2003- 2005

Research Experiences

Research Member of Project “Dynamic Matching and Interactions: Theory and Experiments”, sponsored by Agence Nationale de la Recherché (2014-2018)

Principle Investigator: Francis Bloch (Paris School of Economics)

Research Assistant of Project “Risk in Human Capital Investment”, sponsored by Chinese National Social Science Foundation (2007-2009)

Principle Investigator: Desheng Lai (Beijing Normal University)

Research Assistant of Project “Employment Development Strategies in China”, sponsored by Chinese National Social Science Foundation (2008-2009)

Principle Investigator: Desheng Lai (Beijing Normal University)

Other Working Experiences Summer Intern, Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, June – Sep. 2007

Summer Intern, Junior Achievement (International NGO), Beijing, July – Aug. 2008 Annual Intern, Mercer Consulting Company, Beijing, Aug. 2008 – June 2009

Contestant, Global Social Venture Competition Conference, India, Dec. 2008 – May 2009

Computer Skills

STATA, LaTex, Z-tree, MS Office