key: cord-0050266-dwn1ib3b
authors: nan
title: 2021 Kuznets Prize awarded to Yun Qiu, Xi Chen, and Wei Shi
date: 2020-09-18
journal: J Popul Econ
DOI: 10.1007/s00148-020-00803-4
sha: 18c21f866e81ed6ac4f8a5316660f1096de36064
doc_id: 50266
cord_uid: dwn1ib3b

nan

Yun Qiu is an assistant professor at the Institute for Economic and Social Research at Jinan University (Guangzhou, China). She obtained a PhD in Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics from Ohio State University. She is a Fellow of the Global Labor Organization (GLO). Yun uses applied econometric techniques to conduct research in areas focused on (1) understanding the health and productivity impacts of extreme weather and air pollution in China; (2) characterizing the influencing factors of the spread of COVID-19 and its socioeconomic impacts; and (3) valuing coastal adaptation strategies and urban amenities.

Xi Chen is an associate professor of Health Policy and Economics at Yale University. He obtained a PhD in Applied Economics from Cornell University. His research endeavors focus on improving public policies on population aging, life course health, and global health systems. Dr. Chen is a consultant at the United Nations Institutions, Fellow at the Global Labor Organization (GLO), former President of the China Health Policy and Management Society, and Butler-Williams Scholar at the US National Institutes of Health. Dr. Chen's work has been published in prestigious economics, science, and medical journals, recognized through numerous awards, and widely covered in media.

Wei Shi is an associate professor at the Institute for Economic and Social Research, Jinan University (Guangzhou, China). His research interests include topics in econometrics, real estate economics, and applied microeconomics. His current research focuses on panel data models with spatial interactions and multidimensional heterogeneities, peer effects models, and applications of spatial econometric models. He is a Fellow of the Global Labor Organization (GLO) and obtained his PhD in economics from Ohio State University.

2 Abstract of the winning paper "This study models local and cross-city transmissions of the novel coronavirus in China between January 19 and February 29, 2020. We examine the role of various socioeconomic mediating factors, including public health measures that encourage social distancing in local communities. Weather characteristics 2 weeks prior are used as instrumental variables for causal inference. Stringent quarantines, city lockdowns, and local public health measures imposed in late January significantly decreased the virus transmission rate. The virus spread was contained by the middle of February. Population outflow from the outbreak source region posed a higher risk to the destination regions than other factors, including geographic proximity and similarity in economic conditions. We quantify the effects of different public health measures in reducing the number of infections through counterfactual analyses. Over 1.4 million infections and 56,000 deaths may have been avoided as a result of the national and provincial public health measures imposed in late January in China."

The Journal of Population Economics awards the "Kuznets Prize" for the best paper recently published in the Journal of Population Economics. Starting from 2014, the Prize has been awarded annually. Papers are judged by the Editors of the Journal.

Simon 

Mr. Kuznets was a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania for 24 years and Professor of Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University from 1954 until he joined Harvard University in 1960

He was a former president of the American Economic Association and the

Binnur Balkan (Stockholm School of Economics) and Semih Tumen (Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey) for their article "Immigration and prices: quasiexperimental evidence from Syrian refugees in Turkey

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