Dr. Chengfang LIU

Boya Chair Professor and Associate Dean

School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences (SAAS)

Senior Research Fellow and Deputy Director

China Center for Agricultural Policy (CCAP)

Peking University

Email: cfliu.ccap@pku.edu.cn 

Research Area

Development Economics, Applied Micro-Econometrics 

Short Bio

Chengfang Liu, Ph.D in agricultural and resource economics from the University of California (Davis), holds the Boya Professorship at Peking University and is a senior research fellow at the China Center for Agricultural Policy. She also serves as the associate dean at the School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences. For more than 20 years, she has worked on development economics and applied microeconometrics. Her work is highly empirical, drawing on a large number of datasets that she and her coauthoring teams have collected in rural China. Currently, her research has its full focus on public services (including education, health and nutrition) and rural transformation. With her coauthors, Dr. Liu has published about 140 papers in peer-reviewed journals both domestically and internationally, including Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Labor Economics, etc. In recognition of her work, Dr. Liu received The China National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scientists (“Guojia Jieqing”) in 2019, one of the highest academic honors that can be bestowed on a young scholar in China. She served as the Chair of the China Section of Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (2019-2021) and the associate editor of China Agricultural Economic Review (2023 to date).  

Selected Publications

1.  Guo, Y., S. Li, S. Chen, Y. Tang, C. Liu (*). 2022. Health Benefits of Having More Female Classmates: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from China. Economics of Education Review 91(2022) 102330.

2.  Chen, K., C. Liu, X. Liu, Z. Wang, R. Luo, S. Li, Y. Yu, H. Alderman, 2021. Nutrition, Cognition and Social Emotion among Preschoolers in Poor, Rural Areas of South Central China: Status and Correlates. Nutrients, 13, 1322.

3.  Zhou, H., Y. Wu, C. Liu (*), C. Sun, Y. Shi, L. Zhang, A. Medina, S. Rozelle. 2020. Conditional Cash Transfers, Uptake of Maternal and Child Health Services, and Health Outcomes in Western Rural China, BMC Public Health 20, 870 (2020).

4.  Liu, C., Y. Li, S. Li, R. Luo, L. Zhang, S. Rozelle, S. Hagist, J. Hou. 2019. The Returns to Education in Rural China: Some New Estimates. Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 59: 1-20.

5.  Loyalka, P., S. Sylvia, C. Liu, J. Chu, Y. Shi. 2019. Pay by Design: Teacher Performance Pay Design and the Distribution of Student Achievement. Journal of Labor Economics 37(3).

6.  Liu, C., L. Lu, L. Zhang (*), R. Luo, S. Sylvia, A. Medina, S. Rozelle, D. S. Smith, Y. Chen, T. Zhu. 2017. Effect of Deworming on Indices of Health, Cognition, and Education among Schoolchildren in Rural China: A Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 96(6): 1478-1489.

7.  Yi, H., Y. Song, C. Liu (*), X. Huang, L. Zhang, Y. Bai, B. Ren, Y. Shi, P. Loyalka, J. Chu, S. Rozelle. 2015. Giving Kids a Head Start: The Impact and Mechanisms of Early Commitment of Financial Aid on Poor Students in Rural China. Journal of Development Economics. 113: 1-15.

8.  Liu, C. (*), L. Zhang, R. Luo, S. Rozelle, B. Sharbono, J. Adams, Y. Shi, A. Yue, H. Li, X. Wang, T. Glauben. 2011. Early Commitment on Financial Aid and College Decision Making of Poor Students: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Rural China, Economics of Education Review, 30: 627–640.

Courses Taught at Peking University

Development Economics with Applications to China; Applied Microeconometrics