Ph.D. Candidate in Economics (Expected June 2019)
I am a Ph.D. candidate from the University of Connecticut and have a deep interest in exploring the causes and effects of the high saving rate and current account surplus seen in China and even the developing countries in the past few decades. My current work looks at early retirement and the pension system as potential mechanisms driving the remarkable high national savings in China. I am interested in using both calibrated general equilibrium macroeconomic models and econometric techniques to answer these questions.
This paper uses a life-cycle model to study the role of early retirement and
pension system as drivers of China's persistent high savings. In the model,
by incorporating the feature of Chinese mixed-pension system and being
capable of generating changes in the national saving rate in China, the
dominant early retirement effect over the wealth substitution effect can
increase individual's savings, which results in high savings in China. The
findings suggest that the model can explain approximately 44% of the
increase in the saving rate between 1995 and 2015.
This paper uses a life-cycle model to study the role of the pension system and early retirement as drivers of China’s persistent high savings and current account surplus. In the model, by incorporating the feature of Chinese mixed-pension system, the dominant early retirement effect rather than the wealth substitution effect can increase the household’s savings, which results in high savings in China. In addition, the decline in labor supply due to the early retirement will make industries to shrink their production scale, which decreases the demand for capital and the domestic investment rate, leading to the current account surplus.
From the perspective of demographic structure, this paper uses the annual panel data of 102 developing countries from 1995 to 2013 and system GMM to investigate the empirical explanation of their current account surplus. The main findings are that the proportion of the younger population has a significantly positive effect on the current account or international capital flows. However, the old population does not show a significant relationship with the current account. and the fallout such a switch would have upon inequality and welfare.
In a single word, my teaching philosophy revolves around incentives. Students need to have
the incentive to learn the subject, attend class, do the research and excel on assignments
and exams. To this end, I have instituted several policies to ensure that my teaching
constitutes a productive approach.
Department of Economics
University of Connecticut
365 Fairfield Way, U-1063
Storrs, CT 06269-1063
Phone : 860-617-5899
Francis Ahking (Advisor)
Kai “Jackie” Zhao
Kanda Naknoi
+1(860)486-3026
+1(860)486-4326
+1(203)251-8416
Department of Economics
Department of Economics
Department of Economics
332 Oak Hall
349 Oak Hall
314 Oak Hall
Storrs, CT 06269-1063
Storrs, CT 06269-1063
Storrs, CT 06269-1063