I like to study whether economic policy can be implemented effectively, especially for poor countries.

I once studied whether microfinance can effectively alleviate poverty. At the end of the semester, I presented a ppt to explain my finding in class and compare the policies of different countries. I was very satisfied to be able to give students answers in the Q&A session. My understanding of microfinance organization is that it depends on the degree of commercial and the degree of banking supervisory agency regulation. During the pandemic, I was very concerned about the situation in poor areas. Due to the spread of COVID-19, it is even worse for low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) that already have weaker social safety nets and insufficient domestic funding, 85 million people in LMICs having been thrown into extreme poverty, a view supported by IMF. According to Innovations for Poverty Action’s research, even people who are able to work cannot find a job so that borrowers are under heavy repayment pressure, and the pressure is transferred to lenders. As a result, microfinance institutions have to update their appeals and expected risk-adjusted returns. In response to the pandemic, various countries are adopting different microfinance policies: Pakistan proposed moratoriums on repayment; China forbearance on interest. Apart from that, governments use different approach to deliver cash transfer. For example, in areas where mobile coverage, bank branches, and mobile money agents cover a wide area, mobile payment will have an impact on MFIs. Fintech may siphon way MFI’s best consumers, putting institutions further under pressure (Malik, Kashif, et al, 2020). Pandemic is a crisis for microfinance. How to sustain poverty reduction after the pandemic ends is an important issue.

I once represented a private equity company in an internship in Zhongguancun MOOC Times Building, which is the Internet + Education Industrial Park as the Silicon Valley of Chinese Education. Our company hopes to invest in an English training institution. My primary duty was to find out the best investment choice in several English language training institutions. I compiled the volume of customers, price, size of the stores via Excel and used R to conduct text analysis by gathering online comments on all platforms to gain sentiment scores. Finally, I completed a PowerPoint report to the company, analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of five companies, and inferred that the Beijing English education model will continue to be Westernized in the future, and will be more inclined to integrate with comprehensive business circles. In this internship, I not only practiced my data collection and analysis skills, but also made me feel the correctness of the government's decision to establish a cluster. Once a cluster is formed, knowledge can easily spillover.

I noticed that [University Name]y companies have a small cafe downstairs. Some coffee shops slogan say that this is the birthplace of which companies. Some even have photos of the prime minister drinking coffee with heads of companies. Whenever I pass by these shops, I often think that the policy may be built from this cup of coffee. First set the general direction for the establishment of China's Silicon Valley, and then start with small things like coffee. I have read about the café effect in Silicon Valley. Although engineers would not aspire to divulge their company’s particular secrets, some discussion might encourage people to share tacit knowledge here, which can force companies to reform and innovate to meet market de[University Name]ds even occur across different industries. This is also the original intention of establishing Zhongguancun, forming a cluster to promote technology and increase efficiency. Scale economies and pecuniary and technological agglomeration economies lead to spatial concentration of jobs. I gradually feel that the policy is interesting. It is not rigid, but affects society gradually. This kind of thinking has strengthened me to become a policy researcher and policy executor. After having this goal, I also consciously cultivated my policy thinking from the economic field in my fourth year. Currently my classmates and I try use discounted expected utility theory to analyze why the UK government did not opt for a 2-week “circuit breaker” lockdown over the October school break. Compared with Chinese government objectives, it is a little bit difficult for us to identify the discount factor since a lot of uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, such as culture and main value for the country. But I believe it is an interesting and challenging job!

Also, I always pay attention to the skills needed in the practice of analysing and aim to consolidate all I have learned into real competency. In Econometrics, I applied the logarithm of Douglas production function to analysing FDI panel data by building suitable models. I used R to multivariate stochastic time series analysis, in particular to vector autoregressive processes and cointegration. The mastery of Excel, R, and Stata helped me a lot. I believe these skills can play a role in the next in-depth research. I am impressed by Dr Alexandra Hart[University Name]’s research on Wartime Violence, I am curious whether COVID-19 can be compared to the impact of suffering empathy on immigration. At [University Name], I can equip with essential knowledge and key skills to analyse public policy, I hope in five years I could be a member of IPA like Dr Alexandra Hart[University Name] to alleviate poverty.

Malik, Kashif, et al. "COVID-19 and the Future of Microfinance: Evidence and Insights from Pakistan." [University Name] Review of Economic Policy, Forthcoming (2020).

Hart[University Name], A.C. and Morse, B.S., 2015. Wartime Violence, Empathy, and Altruism: Evidence from the Ivoirian Refugee Crisis in Liberia.