Siying Wang profile picture

Hello, I'm

Alice (Siying) Wang

Ph.D Candidate
Sauder School of Business at UBC

About Me

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I am a PhD candidate in Strategy & Business Economics at the Sauder School of Business, UBC. My research applies methods from industrial organizations to study topics in spatial and urban economics, and international trade. I'm interested in getting insights from the analysis of large-scale digital data.

I'm on the 2024-25 academic job market. My job market paper shows the significant disamenity of urban highways on local travel and quantifies the welfare effects of highway policies using smartphone GPS and commuting data.

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Research

Publications

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Environmental Regulations and International Trade: A Quantitative Economic Analysis of World Pollution Emissions.

With Yuwan Duan, Ting Ji, Yi Lu. Journal of Public Economics, 2021.

Link to Paper

Job Market Paper

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Are Highways Conduits or Barriers for Urban Travelers? A Welfare Analysis using Smartphone Data.

"Honorable Mention" in Best Student Paper Prize at the 18th North American Meeting of the UEA 2024

Link to Draft

This paper uses smartphone GPS data to study the impact of highways on intracity non-work travel within the Seattle MSA. Using a discrete choice framework, I show that destinations that are accessed by traveling on or across a highway are visited 17% less than other destinations, ceteris paribus. This effect is non-linear in travel distance and is especially significant for short trips by travelers in urbanized zones. I then quantify the welfare effects of two counterfactual scenarios with alternative highway systems using a quantitative urban model that incorporates non-work travel. I find that welfare increases by 10.2% if the urban highways are replaced with an underground system and by 9.0% if they are replaced with primary surface roads. For both exercises, residents in the urban core benefit from amenity improvements, albeit at the cost of reduced amenities in suburban zones.

Work in Progress

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Second Language, Migration, and International Trade.

With Keith Head & Thierry Mayer

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Experience

Teaching

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Urban Land Economics (2022W, 2023W)

University of British Columbia, Sauder School of Business

Teaching Assistant

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International Economics (Undergraduate)

University of British Columbia, Sauder School of Business

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Managerial Economics (MBA)

University of British Columbia, Sauder School of Business

Research Assistant

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Leader of an undergraduate RA group

RA for Prof. Ken Kikkawa

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Contact Me