Stanford University

Student Seminar | February 12, 2027

-

 

About the Student Seminar Series


Our Student Seminar Series offers emerging China scholars an opportunity to engage directly with interdisciplinary faculty and peers from across campus to discuss and receive feedback on their research. Each seminar features one or several PhD students presenting their latest empirical findings on issues related to China’s economy. Past topics have included college major selection as an obstacle to socioeconomic mobility, the effect of a cooling-off period on marriage outcomes, and factors contributing to government corruption. Faculty and senior scholars provide comments and feedback for improvement. This event series helps to build and strengthen Stanford’s community of young researchers working on China.

Student Seminars are held on select Fridays from 12 - 1 pm. Lunch will be provided! 

Visit the Student Seminar Series webpage for more information on the content and format of the series and to learn how to sign up to present. 

Learn More About the Student Seminar Series

Goldman Conference Room, Encina Hall, E409

Seminars
Date Label

An unexpected boost for democracy

Paragraphs

Critics have warned that Chinese projects could chip away at democracy in Latin America. Our research suggests the opposite may be happening.

This article is based on Ibáñez and Schläpfer's working paper on how exposure to Chinese development projects shapes democratic attitudes in Latin America.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Journal Articles
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Development + Cooperation
Authors
Alain Schläpfer
Number
pp. 54-56

Student Seminar | January 29, 2027

-

 

About the Student Seminar Series


Our Student Seminar Series offers emerging China scholars an opportunity to engage directly with interdisciplinary faculty and peers from across campus to discuss and receive feedback on their research. Each seminar features one or several PhD students presenting their latest empirical findings on issues related to China’s economy. Past topics have included college major selection as an obstacle to socioeconomic mobility, the effect of a cooling-off period on marriage outcomes, and factors contributing to government corruption. Faculty and senior scholars provide comments and feedback for improvement. This event series helps to build and strengthen Stanford’s community of young researchers working on China.

Student Seminars are held on select Fridays from 12 - 1 pm. Lunch will be provided! 

Visit the Student Seminar Series webpage for more information on the content and format of the series and to learn how to sign up to present. 

Learn More About the Student Seminar Series

Goldman Conference Room, Encina Hall, E409

Seminars
Date Label

Student Seminar | December 11, 2026

-

 

About the Student Seminar Series


Our Student Seminar Series offers emerging China scholars an opportunity to engage directly with interdisciplinary faculty and peers from across campus to discuss and receive feedback on their research. Each seminar features one or several PhD students presenting their latest empirical findings on issues related to China’s economy. Past topics have included college major selection as an obstacle to socioeconomic mobility, the effect of a cooling-off period on marriage outcomes, and factors contributing to government corruption. Faculty and senior scholars provide comments and feedback for improvement. This event series helps to build and strengthen Stanford’s community of young researchers working on China.

Student Seminars are held on select Fridays from 12 - 1 pm. Lunch will be provided! 

Visit the Student Seminar Series webpage for more information on the content and format of the series and to learn how to sign up to present. 

Learn More About the Student Seminar Series

Goldman Conference Room, Encina Hall, E409

Seminars
Date Label

Student Seminar | November 20, 2026

-

 

About the Student Seminar Series


Our Student Seminar Series offers emerging China scholars an opportunity to engage directly with interdisciplinary faculty and peers from across campus to discuss and receive feedback on their research. Each seminar features one or several PhD students presenting their latest empirical findings on issues related to China’s economy. Past topics have included college major selection as an obstacle to socioeconomic mobility, the effect of a cooling-off period on marriage outcomes, and factors contributing to government corruption. Faculty and senior scholars provide comments and feedback for improvement. This event series helps to build and strengthen Stanford’s community of young researchers working on China.

Student Seminars are held on select Fridays from 12 - 1 pm. Lunch will be provided! 

Visit the Student Seminar Series webpage for more information on the content and format of the series and to learn how to sign up to present. 

Learn More About the Student Seminar Series

Goldman Conference Room, Encina Hall, E409

Seminars
Date Label

Directional AI Advice: Experimental Evidence from Healthcare

-

Generative AI is fast becoming the first-place people turn for expert advice. The advice it provides can be directional rather than neutral, shaped in part by the choices of its designers and regulators. When clients consult AI before meeting an expert, they carry this directional advice into a relationship that once rested on the expert’s judgment alone. We study its consequences in healthcare through a large-scale preregistered field experiment at a Chinese hospital, where we randomize patients’ access to an AI chatbot before their outpatient visit. Examination of the conversation logs shows that the chatbot routinely cautions against the use of medications, especially Traditional Chinese Medicine and antibiotics, while issuing clean recommendations for diagnostic testing, consistent with the liability-driven guardrails encoded in AI training. This directionality propagates into clinical practice. Prescription rates decline among treated patients while diagnostic testing increases, and these effects are more pronounced among physicians who are receptive to patient input and those with more intensive prescribing styles. Beyond shifting healthcare utilization, survey results show that AI access reduces patient compliance and satisfaction, shifting the balance of authority between patients and physicians.

Lingsheng Meng headshot

Speaker: Lingsheng Meng is a Senior Research Scholar at the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions (SCCEI). His research interests are in the fields of labor economics, development economics, and public economics. So far, the bulk of his work is highly empirical and concerned with six main areas: (1) social mobility; (2) inequality; (3) gender disparities; (4) the role of government; (5) political connections; (5) higher education; (6) the US-China trade war. His work appeared in the Journal of Public Economics, the Journal of Human Resources, the Journal of Development Economics, and other peer-reviewed journals. Lingsheng received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Maryland at College Park in 2010, an M.Phil. in Economics from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2004, and a B.A. in Economics and Thai from Peking University in 2002. Before joining Stanford, he taught at Tsinghua University from 2010 to 2017 and at the Chinese University of Hong Kong from 2017 to 2022.

 

 

 

Zoom

Lingsheng Meng, Senior Research Scholar, Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions (SCCEI)
Seminars
Image
Portrait of Sungchul Park
Link target
New window
Date Label

Authoritarian Markets: The Politics of China’s Banking Explosion

-

Conventional wisdom holds that banking markets flourish where property rights are secure, the rule of law is strong, and the state keeps its hands off. China has none of these. Yet over the past three decades, the number of Chinese banks grew exponentially, and competition became fierce. Why? In Authoritarian Markets: The Politics of China’s Banking Explosion (Cornell University Press, 2026), Adam Y. Liu argues that China’s banking market grew not despite authoritarian rule but because of it. The banking sector, he argues, is a market of the state, by the state, and for the state. Drawing on a decade of fieldwork and an extensive array of original data, Liu uncovers the political logic of banking market development in China and authoritarian states more broadly and explores what this means for the future of China’s economy.

Adam Liu

Speaker: Adam Y. Liu is an Assistant Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. His research focuses on Chinese politics and political economy. He earned his PhD from Stanford University, where his dissertation on the politics of China's banking development won the 2020 BRICS Economic Research Award.

 

Directions and Parking > 

Philippines Conference Room (C330)
Encina Hall, 3rd Floor
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305

Adam Y. Liu, Assistant Professor, National University of Singapore
Seminars
Link target
New window
Date Label

Student Seminar | October 30, 2026

-

Topic: TBD 


Speaker: TBD

Abstract TBD 

About the Student Seminar Series


Our Student Seminar Series offers emerging China scholars an opportunity to engage directly with interdisciplinary faculty and peers from across campus to discuss and receive feedback on their research. Each seminar features one or several PhD students presenting their latest empirical findings on issues related to China’s economy. Past topics have included college major selection as an obstacle to socioeconomic mobility, the effect of a cooling-off period on marriage outcomes, and factors contributing to government corruption. Faculty and senior scholars provide comments and feedback for improvement. This event series helps to build and strengthen Stanford’s community of young researchers working on China.

Student Seminars are held on select Fridays from 12 - 1 pm. Lunch will be provided! 

Visit the Student Seminar Series webpage for more information on the content and format of the series and to learn how to sign up to present. 

Learn More About the Student Seminar Series

Goldman Conference Room, Encina Hall, E409

Seminars
Date Label
Subscribe to China