I am a PhD candidate in Economics at Australian National University.
My research interests are applied microeconometrics, labor economics, and economics of marriage.
I am on the job market in the 2023-2024 academic year.
You can find my CV here.
Contact: yanran.zhu@anu.edu.au
Job Market Paper
Labor Force Transition Dynamics:Unemployment Rate or Job Posting Counts (PDF)
Invited and R&R for the Research in Labor EconomicsJob posting counts (JPCs) are increasingly being used as indicators of employment dynamics, but they have not received sufficient research attention to establish their value as a metric of these dynamics. This study aims to assess the efficacy of the traditional survey-based unemployment rate versus big-data-based JPCs in capturing labor market transitions in the United States. Using the Current Population Survey, our comparison focuses on the ability of these two types of metrics to predict individuals' transitions between employment and unemployment. Unlike with the unemployment rate, we not only examine the raw national JPCs but also consider four additional versions of JPCs that measure labor demand at various disaggregated levels. Our findings suggest that JPCs and the unemployment rate provide comparable predictive power for labor market transitions, with each capturing different aspects of the variation in these transitions. The estimated coefficients of both types of metrics remain statistically significant when considered together. Notably, the correlation between the unemployment rate and labor market transitions switches signs when year fixed effects are added, but a similar phenomenon is not observed when JPCs are examined. Among the various versions of JPCs, the most refined measure—JPCs by state, occupation, and industry—demonstrates the strongest predictive capabilities, outperforming other JPC measures and the unemployment rate.
Work in Progress
Generational Shifts in Marriage Formation and Childbearing: Evidence from Chinese Court Documents
We use legal documents related to divorce disputes in China and employee a large language model, aiming to explore the patterns of marriage formation and childbearing across generations, as a window through which to glimpse culture and social change. We find significant shifts in the timing and sequence of relationship initiation, marriage, and fertility across generational cohorts. Besides, the flash marriage phenomenon become more apparent in younger generations. Furthermore, in a society where traditional viewpoints have often emphasized the sequence of first marrying and then having children, our findings question whether these norms are being upended, warranting further investigation.
The Value of Project Management Certification (tentative)
We use job posting data to explore the value of certification requirement on wage potentials. Using project manager positions as a case study and addressing gaps in the literature about the value of project management certification (PMC), we focus on wage offerings and the number of PMC-required job postings. Our findings suggest positions requiring a PMC generally offer higher wages. This wage premium, however, declines as educational and experience requirements increases. Intriguingly, the PMC appears to act as a substitute for specific experience or education thresholds, more so for experience than education. Furthermore, by employing the reweighting-estimation-transformation (RWET) approach, we find variations in the demand for project managers with PMC requirements across different job characteristics is significant. For instance, positions that require a bachelor's degree have seen an increase in postings specifying a PMC, while a decrease in demanding extensive years of experience suggests a greater appreciation for practical experience in senior positions. Moreover, the finance and insurance, as well as information industries, exhibit a higher tendency to seek certified project managers, underscoring the diverse valuation of certification across fields.
