Yan Chen (economist)

Yan Chen
Born	(1966-07-11) July 11, 1966 Beijing, China
Nationality	American
Alma mater	California Institute of Technology Tsinghua University
Awards	Carolyn Shaw Bell Award, 2019
Scientific career
Fields	Experimental economics
Institutions	University of Michigan Shanghai Jiaotong University
Doctoral advisor	John Ledyard
Website	https://yanchen.people.si.umich.edu/

Yan Chen (born July 11, 1966) is a Chinese American behavioral and experimental economist. She is Daniel Kahneman Collegiate Professor of Information at the University of Michigan School of Information, research professor in the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, and distinguished visiting professor at the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University, where she directs the Economics Science and Policy Experimental Lab. She is a former president of the Economic Science Association, an international organization of experimental economists.

Biography

Chen studied English for Science and Technology as an undergraduate student in China, and became interested in Economics because of the impact of the Chinese economic reform happening around her. Since English majors were not eligible for graduate school in economics in China, she came to the U.S. for graduate school at Caltech. Her first position at the University of Michigan was in the economics department, but she did not receive tenure in that department. Since her husband was a tenured professor of physics at the same university, she wanted to find a position nearby, and she was recruited to a new position on the faculty of the University of Michigan School of Information.

Research

Chen is known for her research on behavioral and experimental economics, market and mechanism design, and public economics

Selected works

• Chen, Yan, and Sherry Xin Li. "Group identity and social preferences." American Economic Review 99, no. 1 (2009): 431–57.
• Chen, Roy, and Yan Chen. "The potential of social identity for equilibrium selection." American Economic Review 101, no. 6 (2011): 2562–89.
• Chen, Yan, F. Maxwell Harper, Joseph Konstan, and Sherry Xin Li. "Social comparisons and contributions to online communities: A field experiment on movielens." American Economic Review 100, no. 4 (2010): 1358–98.
• Chen, Yan, and Tayfun Sönmez. "School choice: an experimental study." Journal of Economic theory 127, no. 1 (2006): 202–231.
• Chen, Yan, and Fang-Fang Tang. "Learning and incentive-compatible mechanisms for public goods provision: An experimental study." Journal of Political Economy 106, no. 3 (1998): 633–662.
• Chen, Yan. "Incentive-compatible mechanisms for pure public goods: A survey of experimental research." Handbook of experimental economics results 1 (2008): 625–643.