About

Welcome to my website!

I am Kangkai Wang (王慷楷), a Post-doctoral Fellow at the HKU Business School, The University of Hong Kong. I received my Ph.D. in Economics from the Guanghua School of Management, Peking University in 2025.

My research interests lie in leveraging large-scale datasets and combining design-based (reduced-form) and model-based (structural) approaches to explore topics in urban economics, environmental economics, and empirical industrial organization.

Here is my CV.

News

• [Oct. 2025] Our paper has been accepted for presentation at the 19th North American Meeting of the Urban Economics Association.
• [Jul. 2025] I will present at the 2025 International Conference on Consumption Studies.
  [Jun. 2025] I will participate in the CUHK Summer School of Asia in the Global Economy 2025, themed Trade and Environment.
  [Jun. 2025] I will present at The 3rd Summer Meeting in Urban Economics, China.
  [May 2025] I will deliver a mini lecture on my research in urban and environmental economics at the School of International Trade and Economics@UIBE.
  [May 2025] I will attend The 11th Biennial International Conference on Transition and Economic Development at Fudan University, where our paper will be presented.
  [Mar. 2025] I will present at The 14th European Meeting of the Urban Economics Association.
  [Mar. 2025] The RA project I worked on, " The Geographic Flow of Bank Funding and Access to Credit: Branch Networks, Synergies, and Local Competition " (by Victor Aguirregabiria, Robert Clark, and Hui Wang) has been accepted by the American Economic Review!
  [Jan. 2025] Our paper has been accepted for the " Climate Change Impact, Adaptation, and Resilience in the Developing World " session at ASSA 2025.

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Working Papers

• Microclimate Risks and Urban Businesses (with Jianwei Xing, Hua Zhang, Shuang Zhang, and Eric Zou)
  Presentations: 19th North American Meeting of the Urban Economics Association(scheduled), 2025 International Conference on Consumption Studies, Chicago, ASSA 2025, 14th Toulouse Conference on the Economics of Energy and Climate, Michigan Ross, Frontiers in ESG Research Workshop@HKU, LSE, PKU, FISF@FDU, UoBath, CEIBS
• Why Are Commutes So Short in China? The Role of Travel Aversion and Location Adaptability (with Yizhen Gu, Zhi Wang, and Qinghua Zhang)
  Presentations: SMUE 2025@PHBS, HNNU Business School, UIBE, The 11th Biennial International Conference on Transition and Economic Development, GSM Urban Economics Workshop@PKU, 14th European Meeting of the Urban Economics Association, PHBS Urban Economics Workshop
• Gradual Optimization Against Heterogeneous Moral Hazard: Evidence from a Fintech Lending Firm (with Chengzheng Li, and Xiang Ma)
  Presentations: THU, 2024 Asian Meeting of the Econometric Society in China, ASSA 2024, The 2023 Microeconomics Workshop@XMU, The 2022 China Economics Summer Institute, CASS, PKU, SWUFE

Work in Progress

• Beyond Boundaries: A Welfare Evaluation of Beijing's Greenbelt Policy
• Market Integration and Product Variety: Evidence from China's Tobacco Tax Reform (with Shengmao Cao, Qi Wu, and Jianwei Xing)
  Presentations: SUFE-Jinan Empirical IO Conference 2023@SUFE, The 7th CCER Summer Institute@PKU, GSM@PKU, SME@CUHKSZ, NSD@PKU

Teaching Assistant

• Causal Inference for Microeconometrics (UG, Fall 2024 & Fall 2023)
• Industrial Organization (UG, Spring 2022 & Spring 2021)
• Urban Economics (Ph.D., Fall 2024 & Fall 2021)
• Advanced Microeconomics I (Ph.D., Fall 2022 & Fall 2021)