Yu Zhu

• PhD in Economics, University of Cambridge
• Professor of Economics at University of Dundee School of Business & IZA Research Fellow at University of Dundee

This study examines the economic impact of the influx of international students on the UK's trade in cultural goods, following the abolition of the post-study work (PSW) visa, which previously allowed graduates from non-EU countries to stay in the United Kingdom for at least 2 years after completing a UK degree. Using administrative enrolment data...

We investigate the effects of ‘lecture‐based’ (LBT)—i.e. individual work and rote learning—vs. ‘discussion‐based’ (DBT)—i.e. participative and focused on student‐centred learning—teaching styles on the test scores and socio‐economic inequality of middle‐school students randomly assigned to classes using data from the China Education Panel Survey—a...

We use a large and novel administrative dataset to investigate returns to different university ‘degrees’ (subject-institution combinations) in the United Kingdom. Conditioning on a rich set of background characteristics, we find substantial variation in returns across degrees with similar selectivity levels, suggesting students’ degree choices matt...

China experienced a near 5-fold increase in annual Higher Education (HE) enrolment in the decade starting in 1999. Using the China Household Finance Survey, we show that the Great HE Expansion has exacerbated a large pre-existing urban-rural gap in educational attainment underpinned by the hukou (household registration) system. We instrument the ye...

We examine the teacher labour market in China using the 2005 mini-Census, in the context of the transformation of the world's largest education system. We first document a significant increase not only in quantity, but also in quality of teachers during 1990–2005. Instrumental Variables results based on the natural experiment of a substantial expan...

Using the 2017 China Household Finance Survey (CHFS), we estimate the effect of higher education on entrepreneurship for prime-aged males. We use the higher education expansion in China starting in 1999 and instruments of pre-school hukou status to help identify causal effects, and distinguish between own-account workers and employers of small and...

Using the 2013 China Education Panel Survey (CEPS), we study the impact of accessing better schools – a 2008 inclusive education policy through which the central government mandated urban public schools to exempt migrant children from tuition and temporary schooling fees. Whereas the non-disclosure rule regarding geographical location of CEPS sampl...

China experienced a 47% expansion in higher education enrolment between 1998 and 1999 and a sixfold expansion in the decade to 2008. Using a fuzzy discontinuity in the months of births, we show that the 1999 expansion increased education by roughly 1 year around the cut-off point. Importantly, each additional year of university education induced by...

We develop a novel approach to study overeducation by extracting pre-match information from online recruitment platforms using word segmentation and dictionary building techniques, which can offer significant advantages over traditional survey-based approaches in objectiveness, timeliness, sample sizes, area coverage and richness of controls. We ap...

Using random class assignment in the China Education Panel Survey, we study the gender achievement gap of lower secondary students in China. Girls outperform boys in Chinese and English by around 0.5 SD, holding all factors including hukou status, cognitive ability and schools attended constant. The Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition reveals that most of...

We explore three recent comprehensive reforms which aim to equalize access to elite elementary schools in Beijing, to identify the causal effect of access to quality education on house prices. Using property transaction records from Beijing in 2013 and 2016, we construct a balanced panel of residential complexes, each of which linked to its designa...

We investigate how English as Additional Language (EAL) affects the wage gap among foreign-born female immigrants in the UK. To deal with endogeneity and measurement error of EAL and self-selection into employment we implement a 3-step estimation (TSE) procedure suggested by Wooldridge, which deliver consistent and asymptotically normal estimators....

Using the China Family Panel Studies, we identify the subjects studied by vocational college and university graduates, with the latter group further divided into ordinary and key universities. While the returns are around 8-10% to attending colleges and ordinary universities, there are higher returns of 12-16% per annum to attending the more presti...

Using the Quarterly Labour Force Survey, we examine the effect of the higher education expansion following the Education Reform Act 1988 on the returns to education in the United Kingdom. Compared to previous studies, we make the distinction between fresh out-of-school students and returning-from-work students who typically have rather lower prior...

Using the recent China Family Panel Studies, we identify the subjects studied by college (2-3 years) graduates and university (4-5 years) graduates. For the university graduates, we can further distinguish universities by the tier of selectivity (i.e., Key and Ordinary Universities). We take advantage of the rich information on the respondent's sch...

This paper analyzes the relationship between parents’ time devoted to housework and the time devoted to housework by their children. Using data from the Multinational Time Use Study for the UK, we find positive intergenerational correlations in housework for both parents, indicating that the more time parents devote to housework, the more time thei...

This paper investigates the effect of the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative on China’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) using a dataset of all host countries for the period of 2010–2015. The employed econometric technique combines a difference-in-differences estimator with matching techniques. The results show that China’s OFDI in OBOR co...

Exploiting information on foreign qualifications for the first time, we estimate the returns to obtaining UK higher degrees for foreign graduates who migrated to the UK in their 20s. Accounting for direct measures of foreign and UK qualifications and country‐of‐origin fixed effects, we find substantial returns to obtaining UK (higher) degrees on ho...

We study the wage outcomes of university graduates by course (i.e. by subject and institution) using the UK Labour Force Surveys (LFS). We show that the selectivity of undergraduate degree programmes plays an important role in explaining the variation in the relative graduate wages. In fact, we find that much of the variation in relative wages acro...

We show that educational attainments at the end of the compulsory schooling stage are powerful predictors for post-compulsory educational choices in England. In particular, the single academic success indicator of achieving the Government’s gold standard in GCSE is able to predict virtually all the observed incidences of post-compulsory studies for...

Understanding land-expropriated farmers’ welfare change and the determinants of their willingness to change is very important for sustainable urbanization and social stability in developing countries. However, this issue has been seldom explored in previous studies, especially in China. This paper aims to enrich this field by conducting an empirica...

Despite macroeconomic evidence pointing to a negative aggregate consumption response due to political uncertainty, few papers have used microeconomic panel data to analyze how households adjust their consumption after an uncertainty shock. We study household savings and expenditure adjustment from an unexpected, large-scale and rapidly evolving pol...

In the past, students in England and Wales born within the first 5 months of the academic year could leave school one term earlier than those born later in the year. Focusing on women, those who were required to stay on an extra term more frequently hold some academic qualification. Using having been required to stay on as an exogenous factor affec...

We focus on the impact of migrants’ remittances on consumption patterns in China. Using a large homogenous sample of rural households surveyed in 2001 and 2004, we find that remittances are spent on nonhousing consumption expenditures at the margin, virtually dollar-for-dollar, when we instrument remittances and local employed earnings using proxie...

Despite macroeconomic evidence pointing to a negative aggregate consumption response due to political uncertainty, few papers have used microeconomic panel data to analyze how households adjust their consumption after an uncertainty shock. We study household savings and expenditure adjustment from an unexpected, large-scale and rapidly evolving pol...

We focus on the effect of English deficiency on the native-immigrant wage gap for male employees in the UK using the first wave of the UK Household Longitudinal Survey. We show that the wage gap is robust to controls for age, region of residence, educational attainment and ethnicity. However, English as Additional Language (EAL) is capable of expla...

This article analyses the savings behaviour of natives and immigrants in Germany. It is argued that uncertainty about future income and legal status (in case of immigrants) is a key component in the determination of the level of precautionary savings. Using the German dataset, we exploit a natural experiment arising from a change in the nationality...

This article studies the impact of remittances on the savings behaviour of rural households in China, using a primary survey undertaken by the authors in 2006. Allowing for endogeneity and left-censoring of remittances, we find that the marginal propensity to save out of remittances is well below half of that out of other sources of incomes. Moreov...

Governments, over much of the developed world, make significant financial transfers to parents with dependent children. For example, in the United States the recently introduced Child Tax Credit (CTC), which goes to almost all children, costs almost $1 billion each week, or about 0.4% of GNP. The United Kingdom has even more generous transfers and...

This paper provides estimates of the impact of higher education qualifications on the earnings of graduates in the U.K. by subject studied. We use data from the recent U.K. Labour Force Surveys which provide a sufficiently large sample to consider the effects of the subject studied, class of first degree, and postgraduate qualifications. Ordinary L...

Private schooling is an important feature of education systems across the world. Despite its relatively small size, the British private school sector has a long history and plays a prominent role in society. We provide evidence showing that private schools have been successful in transforming their ability to generate the academic outputs that are...

Using a unique dataset which is rich in both family background and attainment in education, we find that educational attainments at the end of the compulsory schooling stage are powerful predictors for post-compulsory educational choices in England. In particular, the single academic success indicator of achieving the Government’s gold standard in...

We report increasing dispersion in the returns to graduate education in Britain, and relate this development to rising overqualification. We distinguish ‘Real’ and ‘Formal’ overqualification, according to whether it is accompanied by underutilization of skill. Employees in the former group experience greater, and more sharply rising, pay penalties...

This paper uses a particular school exit rule previously in effect in England and Wales that allowed students born within the first five months of the academic year to leave school one term earlier than those born later in the year. Focusing on women, we show that those who were required to stay on an extra term more frequently hold some academic q...

Many parents in Britain make huge financial sacrifices to send their children to private schools. Are those sacrifices worthwhile? What return, if any, do they get? Do their children end up in better careers, earning more, than if they have been educated at the expense of the state?Francis Green, Stephen Machin, Richard Murphy and Yu Zhu examine wh...

Teen motherhood continues to be high in the US and the UK relative to most other western European countries. While recent research has clarified how effective policies to reduce teen motherhood might be (Kearney (2009)), there remains little evidence that quantifies the causal effects of teen motherhood on such mothers and their first born children...

We focus on the impact of migrants’ remittances on consumption patterns in rural China, allowing for endogeneity of remittances and county fixed-effects. We find that the marginal propensity to consume out of remittances is close to unity, which is far greater than that out of non-migrant earnings or farm income. These findings imply that rural hou...

This paper reports estimates of the UK “college premium” for young graduates across successive cohorts from large cross-section datasets for the UK pooled from 1994 to 2006—a period when the higher education participation rate increased dramatically. The growth in relative labour demand suggests that graduate supply considerably outstripped demand...

There is someevidence to support the view that Child Support (CS), despite low compliance rates and a strong interaction with the welfare system, has played a positive role in reducing child poverty among non-intact families. However, relatively little research has addressed the role of CS on outcomes for the children concerned. There are good reas...

We analyse the role of private schools in the teachers' labour market. Private schools employ an increasingly-disproportionate share of teachers in Britain, relative to the number of their pupils. Their teachers are more likely than state school teachers to possess post-graduate qualifications, and to be specialists in shortage subjects. Recruitmen...

Many of the large, donor-funded community-based conservation projects that seek to reduce biodiversity loss in the tropics have been unsuccessful. There is, therefore, a need for empirical evaluations to identify the driving factors and to provide evidence that supports the development of context-specific conservation projects. We used a quantitati...

This article examines the determinants of multiple job holding in the UK. We address these issues using data from the first 11 waves of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), which covered the period from 1991 to 2001. Evidence from the BHPS does not support the hypotheses of main job hours constrained and main job insecurity. We argue that the...

Increasing dispersion in the returns to graduate education is found, using quantile regression. This trend is related to rising overqualification. We distinguish between and validate measures of Real and Formal overqualification, according to whether it is or is not accompanied by underutilisation of skill; and using a unique data series in Britain...

The widely held view that separation has adverse effects on children has been the basis of important policy interventions. While a small number of analyses have been concerned with selection into divorce, no studies have attempted to separate out the effects of one parent (mostly the father) leaving, from the effects of that parent's money leaving,...

Despite its relative small size, the independent school sector plays a prominent role in the British society. This paper focuses on the changing private returns to independent education in Britain using the British Household Panel Survey and the two mature cohort studies, the National Child Development Study (NCDS) and the British Cohort Study (BCS...

This article studies the determinants of partnership dissolution and focuses on the role of child support. We exploit the variation in child support liabilities and entitlements driven, in part, by the introduction of a new set of complex rules that determined child support liability in the UK, and by their interaction with welfare rules. Our panel...

This paper is concerned with the relationship between education, wages and working behaviour. The work is partly motivated by the sharp distinction in the literature between the returns to education and the effect of wages on labour supply. Education is the investment that cumulates in the form of human capital while labour supply is the utilizatio...

This paper studies the determinants of partnership dissolution and focuses on the role of child support. We exploit the variation in child support liabilities driven by an important UK policy reform to separately identify the effects of children from the effect of child support liability. We find strong evidence that an increase in the child suppor...

This paper studies the determinants of partnership dissolution and focuses on the role of child support. We exploit the variation in child support liabilities driven by an important UK policy reform to separately identify the effects of children from the effect of child support liability. We find strong evidence that an increase in the child suppor...

In this paper, we use pooled cross-sectional data on 28 provinces to study out-migration in China. In particular, we estimate inter- and intra-province rural-to-urban migration in a simultaneous-equations model. Allowing for the joint determination of inter- and intra-migration, we find the effect of the within province rural-urban income gap on in...

Education has an important effect on wages but it not clear whether this is because education raises productivity or because education is simply a signal of ability. We implement a number of existing tests for discriminating between these two explanations and find that they do not support the signalling hypothesis. However, we have severe reservati...

The relationship between educational levels and wage rates in the Labour Force Survey (LFS) suggests that there is a high financial return to education. ● However, the LFS also reveals that this varies considerably across individuals, and that the degree subject plays an important role, with Arts degrees having little effect on average wages, while...

This paper is concerned with the relationship between education, wages and working behaviour. The work is partly motivated by the sharp distinction in the literature between the returns to education and the effect of wages on labour supply. Education is the investment that cumulates in the form of human capital while labour supply is the utilizatio...

This paper applies the errors-in-variables approach on Chinese panel data to estimate a system of consumer expenditure functions. In particular, total consumption expenditure is treated as a latent variable, while purchase expenditures on different goods and total household income are used as its indicators. It is shown that the common assumption o...

This paper presents evidence on household savings in urban regions of the Chinese provinces Sichuan and Liaoning, based on data from the State Statistical Bureau's Urban Household Survey for the late 1980s. In this period the Chinese economy was subject to extensive reforms that resulted in rapid economic growth followed by extremely high inflation...

This paper uses a sample of lone mothers (and former lone mothers who are now repartnered) drawn from the 1997 Family Resources Survey to analyse the potential effects of reforming the UK system of child support. The main deficiency of the data is that non-resident fathers cannot be matched to the mothers in the data, and this is overcome by exploi...

The primary objective of this paper is to estimate the effect of child support on the work incentives of custodial lone parents and on the living standards of children living with parents who are separated. In this UK context we concentrate on the impact of the child support "disregard" that reduced the overlap between the child support (CS) system...

Despite its relatively small size, the private school sector plays a prominent role in British society. This paper focuses on the changing wage returns to private education in Britain using the British Household Panel Survey and the two mature birth cohort studies, the National Child Development Study (NCDS) and the British Cohort Study (BCS). From...

This paper provides a descriptive analysis of the impact of the independent schools on teachers' labour market in Britain. Using the BHPS and QLFS as well as aggregate statistics from the government and the Independent School Council, we examine the changing quantity and quality of teaching staff in the independent sector, relative to that in the s...

Behavioural economics, mental accounting, hypothecation, Winter Fuel Payment, housing. Abstract This paper is concerned with how a transfer programme for the elderly, ostensibly for winter domestic fuel expenses, affected domestic fuel expenses and other spending. Eligibility conditions and levels of entitlement changed from year to year yielding n...