王绍达教授谈JMP创作心得 Shaoda Wang on Their Job Market Paper
本文最初于 2022 年 1 月 2 日 发布于微信公众号 Impactful Research；2026 年 4 月 28 日 同步至本网站。
Originally published on the WeChat official account Impactful Research on 2022-01-02; mirrored to this website on 2026-04-28.
来源：Google图文
又是找工作的季节，我们决定开辟一个新的专题，采访那些过去几年中市场上冉冉升起的新星，听他们分享一篇有影响力的“就业市场论文”背后的故事。
这个系列的第三篇文章，我们邀请到芝加哥大学哈里斯公共政策学院的助理教授Shaoda Wang分享他的job market paper的创作历程和对青年学者及博士生的建议。王教授2019年毕业于加州大学伯克利分校 (UCB)，他的job market paper “Watering Down Environmental Regulation in China ” 于2020年发表在Quarterly Journal of Economics。这篇文章非常巧妙地利用地域断点设计（地方政府对水质监测站上游的企业相对于下游的企业有更强的监管动机），通过比较监测站上下游企业的全要素生产率（TFP）分布，为中国环境监管的经济成本提供了一个准确的估计，填补了环境经济学领域对该问题的研究空白。
王教授的研究领域涵盖发展经济学、环境经济学与政治经济学。他的其他论文研究了大学生村官对农村地区发展的影响、中央政府政策试点背后的政治经济学逻辑、公民参与对环境保护与治理的重要作用、绩效考核机制对公务员工作行为的影响等多个话题。
以下是王绍达教授分享的关于Watering Down Environmental Regulation in China 这篇文章的创作历程。
Q: 您是怎样发现这一研究问题的？
Q: How did you identify this research question?
A: I became interested in the cost of environmental regulation after observing China’s heavy-handed policy responses to the pollution problems in the past decade, which often leveraged high-powered local political incentives to help enforce environmental standards. When thinking about how to estimate the economic cost of environmental regulation, I noticed that, hypothetically, a perfect experiment would randomly make the local regulators care about the emissions of some firms, but not others. And to mimic this ideal experiment with a real-world setting, I got the idea of comparing polluters located in the immediate upstream of national water monitoring stations vs. those located in the immediate downstream, as the former affects water quality readings while the latter doesn’t. I then brought this idea to my friends Guojun and Bing, both experts in environmental issues, and we had a lot of fun working on this project together.
A: 过去十年间，中国政府针对环境污染问题出台了一系列强有力的应对措施，其中很多政策法规的施行都是依赖于有效调动地方官员的晋升激励。我对这种“利用政治激励推动环保”的治理模式很感兴趣，并希望了解其对经济生产的影响。当我在思考如何估算环境监管的经济成本时，我的出发点是，假设我们可以做一个完美的随机实验，那么我们应该随机地让地方政府去关注某些企业的污染排放，而不关注其他企业。为了在现实世界中去尽量模拟这个理想中的完美实验，我产生了一个想法：如果一个企业的位置在紧邻水质监测站的上游，那么它的排污会影响该监测站的读数，从而会影响当地官员的考核；而如果一个企业的位置在紧邻水质监测站的下游，那么它的排污不会影响到这个监测站的读数，从而也不会对地方官员的考核产生影响。因此，我们可以对比紧邻监测站上下游的相似企业，看看它们的排污和生产状况有何不同。我于是把这个想法告诉了我的好朋友何国俊和张炳，他们都是环境问题的专家，我们之后一起合作，逐步完善这个想法，并最终完成了这个研究。
Q:从您的角度来看，是什么使这篇论文成为一份非常成功的就业市场论文?
Q: From your perspective, what are the main reasons that make this paper a very successful job market paper?
A : China is the largest polluter and manufacturer in the world today, but surprisingly little is understood about the tradeoff between pollution control and industrial productivity in this setting (and in developing countries in general). So I did not need to spend too much effort motivating the importance of my research question, which was helpful during the job talks.
A : 中国是目前世界上最大的污染国和工业制造国，但我们并不清楚中国（以及其他发展中国家）治理污染需要花费多大的经济成本。因此，我不需要花费太多精力来说服我的同行们这是一个有意义的研究问题，这让我找工作时的求职演讲变得相对容易。
Q: 在这篇文章写作与修改过程中最大的挑战是什么？
Q: What was the greatest challenge during the writing and revision of the paper?
A : This paper touches two different fields: the research design is based on a political economy idea (incomplete political contract between central government and local regulators), but this research design is used to answer an environmental economics question (the cost of environmental regulation). It was challenging constantly trying to balance these two different themes throughout the paper, but our editor and referees really helped us a lot on that front, and according to my motivated belief, this has made the paper more appealing to the general audience.
A : 这篇文章涉及两个不同的领域：它的研究设计是基于政治经济学的思想（中央政府与地方监管机构之间的不完全政治契约），但最终回答的是一个环境经济学的问题（环境监管的经济成本）。因此，在整个行文过程中，如何平衡两个不同的主题是一项具有挑战性的工作。我们的编辑和审稿人在这方面提供了很好的建议，这帮助我们的文章扩展了潜在的读者群体。
Q: 您对博士研究生和青年学者开展高质量的研究有什么建议
Q: Do you have any advice for PhD candidates as well as junior scholars on how to produce high-quality research?
A: As a junior researcher myself, I do not know how qualified I am to give out such advice. But something I often remind myself is that, do not be afraid to pursue the most ambitious research questions that can satisfy your curiosity. Even if you cannot answer these questions perfectly, the process of pursuing them is just a lot more enjoyable than spending years studying something that you are not genuinely curious about in the first place.
A: 作为一名刚步入职业轨迹的研究者，我不知道自己是否有资格提供这类建议。但我经常提醒自己的一点是，要有勇气去选择那些足够有“野心”、并且可以满足自己好奇心的研究题目。即使没有办法完美地回答这样的研究问题，追寻这些问题的过程本身仍然可以令人获得许多满足感。
Q: 您对攻读博士学位的学生有什么建议吗?
Q: Do you have any advice for PhD students on their PhD study?
A : A great advice I heard in graduate school was that, you should gain exposure to multiple fields (through courses, seminars, etc.), and think about how to bridge them in new ways. I think this type of “intellectual arbitrage” is a very effective way of advancing our knowledge. For example, if we look at the field of environmental economics, a large part of its advancement in the past two decades was essentially a process of smart people applying tools and insights from labor, trade, public, and IO to better answer far-reaching questions about the environment.
A: 我在读博期间听到的一个非常好的建议是：你应该（通过课程、研讨会等）接触不同的领域，并且思考如何在这些不同的领域之间搭建新的桥梁。这种“智力套利（intellectual arbitrage）”是推动我们知识前进的非常有效的方法。例如，当我们回看环境经济学领域过去二十年的发展，许多研究上的突破，都是源于研究者们将来自劳动经济学、国际贸易、公共经济学和产业组织等领域的工具和思想运用到分析环境问题当中。
Q: 您对求职者有什么建议吗?
Q: Do you have any advice for job market candidates in terms of job hunting?
A : I know this is easier said than done, but try to enjoy the process of meeting so many smart people who are interested in your work, you can get great feedback from them, and perhaps even develop new opportunities for collaborations.
A : 我知道这说起来容易做起来难，但你应该试着享受这个过程：许多聪明的同行正对你的研究产生兴趣，和他们交流的过程中，你可以获得很好的建议，还可能会发展出新的合作机会。
学者简介：
王绍达在芝加哥大学Harris公共政策学院担任助理教授，同时在芝加哥大学贝克尔-弗里德曼研究中心（BFI）以及芝加哥大学能源政策研究中心（EPIC）担任研究员。此前，他于2014年在北京大学获得本科学位，2019年在加州大学伯克利分校获得博士学位，并于2019至2021期间在芝加哥大学经济系进行博士后研究。他的研究领域包括政治经济学、发展经济学、以及环境经济学，尤其关注中国各类公共政策制定与执行背后的政治经济学机制。
参考文献：
He, Guojun, Shaoda Wang, and Bing Zhang. “Watering down environmental regulation in China.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 135, no. 4 (2020): 2135-2185.
| 责任编辑 | 李明、杜琛怡 |
| 校对 | 王绍达 |