Joy Chen | Research

Working Papers

Political Elites and Human Capital Formation in Pre-Imperial China, updated Jan 2024. [Link]

Minor revision

Matriarch for the Patriarch: Female Regency, Two-Sided Commitment and Political Stability in Historical China (with Zhenhuan Lei and Xiuyu Li), updated Jan 2026. [Link]

Publications

State-Building at What Cost? The Consequences of Military Control in Medieval China (with Erik H. Wang). [WP Version]

Comparative Political Studies, conditionally accepted

Industrial Policy i n a New Era: Government Venture Capital in the US-China Trade War (with Robin Gong and Jinlin Li). [Link] [WP Version]

Journal of Development Economics, 2026

From Powerholders to Stakeholders: State-Building with Elite Compensation in Early Medieval China (with Erik H. Wang and Xiaoming Zhang). [Link] [WP Version]

American Journal of Political Science, 2025
Charles Tilly Best Article Award - Honorable Mention, ASA Comparative and Historical Sociology Section, 2025
Previously titled "Leviathan's Offer: State-Building with Elite Compensation in Early Medieval China"
Media: Broadstreet, 政治学评介

State Formation and Bureaucratization: Evidence from Pre-Imperial China. [Link] [WP Version]

Journal of Economic History, 2024
Yang Ruilong Organizational Economics Research Young Scholar Award, 2026
Best Paper Award, International Symposium of Quantitative History, 2018
Media: Sociology理论志

Riding Out the COVID-19 Storm: How Government Policies Affect SMEs in China (with Zijun Cheng, Robin Gong and Jinlin Li). [Link] [WP Version]

China Economic Review, 2022

Media Attention and Choice of Major: Evidence from Anti-Doctor Violence in China (with Shiyu Bo, Yan Song and Sen Zhou). [Link] [WP Version]

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2020

Book Projects and Book Chapters

西方比较政治学中的军队(The Army in Western Comparative Politics)，《比较政治学》第七章，复旦大学出版社

Chapter 7 in Comparative Politics, edited by Zhengxu Wang, Shu Keng and Shiping Tang, Fudan University Press, 2026

Leviathan Reborn (with Erik H. Wang and Xiaoming Zhang)

Revise and Resubmit

Other Writings

Book Review for From Click to Boom: The Political Economy of E-Commerce in China by Lizhi Liu

Journal of Asian Studies, forthcoming

对前人的不敬是进步的关键：乔尔·莫基尔经济思想的启发 (Irreverence is a Key to Progress: Joel Mokyr's Insights on Economic Growth). [Link]

《比较》，2026年第一辑

Book Review for The Economic History of China: From Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century by Richard von Glahn (with Avner Greif). [Link]

Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 2018