💻 Working Paper

• Yuchen Guo, Matthew O. Jackson, and Ruixue Jia. “Comrades and Cause: Peer Influence on West Point Cadets’ Civil War Allegiances”.

Intro:We examine how peers influence the allegiances of West Point cadets in the American Civil War. Specifically, we analyze how quasi-random variations in the proportion of cadets from northern (low-slave) states influenced the decisions of cadets in choosing which army to join. A higher proportion of classmates from low-slave states significantly increased the likelihood that cadets from high-slave states joined the Union Army, while almost all cadets from low-slave states joined the Union Army (if they decided to join the war). Additionally, the higher the fraction of the population that were slaves in a cadet’s home state the lower the likelihood that the cadet joined the Union and the lower the peer influence. We also examine how cadets’ decisions affected their military rank and career outcomes. Our results highlight the importance of peer influence in major life decisions, particularly at critical historical junctures.

• Yuchen Guo, Chenglin Li and pinghan Liang. “Why is there so much surveillance in China——an explanation from a fiscal perspective”.   working paper.
• Yuchen Guo, Qilin Huang and pinghan Liang. “Presidents’ Heel: Hometown Biases and (Mis)allocation of Chinese Universities Funds”.   working paper.

🛠 Working in Progress

• pinghan Liang, Yichuan Zhang and Yuchen Guo. “Unexpected results in traffic monitoring”.
• Yuchen Guo, Jingtang Chen and pinghan Liang.“How China’s growing video surveillance installation affects people’s sense of security and trust”
• Yuchen Guo, Yiming Wang and pinghan Liang.“Conflict and Stability in Organizational Merger From the Perspective of Government Procurement Expenditure”