Publications
Qian, Xuechao. 2025. "Pandemic Babies: Medical Care Delays in Utero and Infant Birth Outcomes," Health Economics: 1–40.
Qian, Xuechao. "A Nation of Two Tales: The Dual Intergenerational Economic Transmission in Rural and Urban China," Population Research and Policy Review 44, 30 (2025).
Antman, Francisca M., Kirk B. Doran, Xuechao Qian, and Bruce A. Weinberg. 2024. "Half Empty and Half Full? Women in Economics and the Rise in Gender-Related Research," AEA Papers and Proceedings, 114: 226-31.
Antman, Francisca M., Kirk B. Doran, Xuechao Qian, and Bruce A. Weinberg. 2024. "Demographic Diversity and Economic Research: Fields of Specialization and Research on Race, Ethnicity, and Inequality," AEA Papers and Proceedings, 114: 528-34.
Qian, Xuechao. "Revolutionized Life: Long-term Effects of Childhood Exposure to Persecution on Human Capital and Marital Sorting," Journal of Population Economics 37, 34 (2024).
Working Papers
Medical Practice Closures and Inequality in Healthcare Utilization (with Rebecca McKibbin) [Revisions Requested by American Journal of Health Economics]
This paper studies the effect of the closure of office-based medical practices on the location where patients sought healthcare during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. First we show that the exit rate of office-based practices increased in 2020 using data from a nationwide US claims database. Using this supply shock to patients, we then show that following an office-based practice closure, there is an increase in overall usage of emergency departments. There is also a shift from office-based care to hospital-based care, suggesting that some patients are not able to establish a new relationship with an office-based provider within five months of the practice closure. Patients from areas with greater disadvantage (lower income levels and higher shares of minority population) as well as the elderly and Medicaid beneficiaries are disproportionately affected. However, the availability of telehealth services mitigates the impact.
Premium or Penalty? Outcomes of Interdisciplinary Behavioral Science Researchers (with Andrew S. Hanks, Kevin M. Kniffin, Bo Wang, and Bruce A. Weinberg; NBER WP #27825) [Revisions Requested by Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization]
Institutions and leaders in academia often herald interdisciplinary research as critical for addressing society’s grand challenges and the behavioral sciences are essential even for problems that are ostensibly “technological, medical, or scientific.” This work studies market outcomes for interdisciplinary researchers in different academic fields, with a focus on psychology and the social sciences (including economics). We leverage 20 years of the Survey of Earned Doctorates to show that: 1) there has been an uptrend in interdisciplinarity in the social sciences and psychology, as in other academic fields, but that rates of interdisciplinarity are low in psychology and economics; 2) interdisciplinary social scientists, psychologists, and economists are most likely to have a second field in the humanities, the life sciences, and business; 3) as in most fields, interdisciplinary social science (including economics) dissertators experience a penalty, but those in psychology experience a premium; and 4) interdisciplinarians are more likely to take postdoctoral positions or to take longer to find employment.
The health benefits of expansions in Medicaid coverage depend on whether insured patients can find providers. This paper investigates how one important group of providers, Obstetrician-Gynecologists (OB-GYNs) select their practice locations in response to expansions of Medicaid/CHIP coverage to mid-low income pregnant women. Expanding eligibility leads to an overall increase in the total supply of OB-GYNs at the county level, with an inflow of individual OB-GYNs to mid-low income counties. However, in state border counties, expanded eligibility reduces the number of OB-GYNs, as OB-GYNs move to the state with lower eligibility. In keeping with my model, while Medicaid/CHIP eligibility expansions on average increase physician supply, in certain cases, it can reduce access to care as physicians avoid low Medicaid reimbursement rates.
The Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) program expands access to medical education and healthcare training. Using an event study strategy, I find that the AHEC program increases local healthcare sector employment. Additionally, individuals exposed to a local AHEC during childhood are less likely to be overweight or experience health limitations and are more likely to complete a four-year college degree or graduate education in adulthood. These dual benefits of expanding medical provider education---improving both population health and human capital---are particularly pronounced among families with less-educated parents, minority populations, and rural residents.
First Foot Forward: A Two-Step Econometric Method for Parsing and Estimating the Impacts of Multiple Identities (with Andrew S. Hanks, Kevin M. Kniffin, Bo Wang, and Bruce A. Weinberg; NBER WP #30293) [under review]
Society increasingly recognizes that individuals often possess multiple identities and that there often exists differential value associated with each specific identity. As a model domain to study individuals with more than one identity, we focus on interdisciplinary dissertators in the United States. Our novel estimation method leverages a two-step process to characterize earnings of interdisciplinary dissertators as functions of the identities (academic fields) they acquire as graduate students. We estimate a first-stage regression of log earnings for monodisciplinarians and then regress log earnings for interdisciplinarians on functions of the first-stage coefficients. Our two-step method provides a framework for parsing and estimating the varied impacts of multiple identities across a wide range of organizational contexts.
Do Double Majors Face Less Risk? An Analysis of Human Capital Diversification (with Andrew S. Hanks, Shengjun Jiang, Bo Wang, and Bruce A. Weinberg; NBER WP #32095) Media Coverage: Business Insider, Forbes, WSJ [under review]
We study how human capital diversification, in the form of double majoring, affects the response of earnings to labor market shocks. Double majors experience substantial protection against earnings shocks, of 56%. This finding holds across different model specifications and data sets. Furthermore, the protection double majors experience is more pronounced when the two majors are more distantly related, highlighting the importance of diverse skill sets. Additional analyses demonstrate that double majors are more likely to work in jobs that require a diverse set of skills and knowledge and are less likely to work in occupations that are closely related to their majors.
Innovation Nation: Evidence from Broadening Access to PhD Training in the US (with Francisca Antman, Kirk Doran, and Bruce A. Weinberg)
The United States rose to become a global leader in scientific research in the early 20th Century. Matching the universe of ProQuest Ph.D. recipients to the full count decennial US Censuses (1850-1940), this paper investigates how access to Ph.D. training developed research manpower in the US during this critical period. Evidence from our event study design suggests that opening one more Ph.D. program during the peak ages of graduate study induces nearly 2 more Ph.D. recipients per 1 million people born in that state. Furthermore, the expansion of Ph.D. programs improved access for minority, immigrant, rural, and lower socioeconomic status families. We also find evidence of a spillover effect from opening new Ph.D. programs on promoting new inventors and improving the quality of patents.
COVID-19 Labor Market Shocks and Pediatric Mental Health: Evidence from Primary Care (with Christopher Lowenstein)
Youth and adolescents have faced an unprecedented confluence of stressors to their mental health in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study draws on individual-level electronic health records from a large and geographically diverse cohort of primary care patients to examine how the COVID-19 induced labor market shock of Spring 2020 affected mental health among youth ages 12--17. We leverage variation in the impact of the pandemic-induced recession on county-level, sector-specific employment to estimate a series of generalized difference-in-differences models and compare outcomes across counties with more versus less exposure to the pandemic economic shock. Despite an overall decrease in the use of primary care among our study sample, we find that the frequency of primary care visits with positive diagnosis for mental health conditions increased following the pandemic onset, especially among patients in counties with larger pre-pandemic shares of sectors that were most vulnerable to pandemic-induced contractions. We further find that this overall effect is primarily driven by visits for ADHD, anxiety, and affective mood disorders, and among patients with pre-existing mental health diagnoses.
The Effect of Paid Sick Leave Mandates on Individuals with Disabilities: Evidence from Social Security Disability Claims (with Anwar Assamidanov, Dhaval M. Dave, Jooyoung Kim, Brandy Lipton, and Joseph J. Sabia; NBER WP #34542)
Paid sick leave mandates (PSLs), which have been adopted by 18 states and the District of Columbia, require employers to provide regular wages when workers take short-term leave for their own or a family member’s medical needs. This study is the first to explore the effects of PSL adoption on participation in the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) programs, as well as the health of persons with disabilities. We find that statewide PSLs are associated with a 6-9 percent increase in initial claims for SSI and joint SSI/SSDI benefits. These applications translate to an increase in beneficiaries, strongest among children under age 18. An exploration of the primary mechanisms likely underlying this result reveals PSL-induced (1) increases in time spent offering informal caregiving of those with disabilities, which may reduce the costs of applying to SS(D)I programs, and (2) increases in health care utilization among children with disabilities. Evidence for negative work hours effects of PSLs is weaker, concentrated among spouses of persons with disabilities. Finally, we find that PSL mandates lead to modest improvements in health among both children and adults with disabilities.
Robots, Demand for Skill and Inequality: Evidence from the China Employer-Employee Survey (with Albert Park and Xiaobo Qu)
This paper examines the equilibrium effects of the most recent automation technology transition towards industrial robots in the manufacturing industry using the newly collected China Employer-Employee Survey (CEES) data. We correct the endogeneity issue by using the constructed provincial capture of nationwide robotics technology as the instrumental variable for the individual firm's use of industrial robots. The 2SLS estimates show that the use of industrial robots in manufacturing firms awards wage premiums to all types of jobs and workers, meanwhile, also reshapes the employment structure and augments wage inequality within the firm. Moreover, the heterogeneity analysis across education groups, occupation levels, and task contents suggests that the shift in the demand for skill is the mechanism, through which the industrial robots affect the labor market.
Work In Progress
Medicaid Dental Benefits, Dental Care Use, and Systemic Health among Adults and Children (with Anuar Assamidanov and Brandy Lipton)
Health and Human Capital Inequality and Diversity in Law Enforcement (with Christopher Lowenstein and Aiday Sikhova)
Out of the University, Into the Workforce: Early 20th Century Scientific Training and Industrial Research (with Peter Nencka)
Ideas, Innovation, and Diversity in Economics (with Francisca Antman, Kirk Doran, and Bruce A. Weinberg)
State Grip, Innovation, and Academic Research in China (with Xueping Sun)
Historical Progress in Education, Innovation, and Science in 19th and 20th Century America (with Francisca Antman, Kirk Doran, and Bruce A. Weinberg)
Short-term and Long-term Impacts of Opening Medical Schools (with Rebecca McKibbin and Ioanni Nicholopoulos)