Peng Zhang

Peng Zhang is currently a PhD candidate in Economics at the University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on development economics and applied microeconomics with a special interest in identifying and explaining persistent constraints which prevent workers from being well equipped for labour market opportunities in developing countries. She is also interested in related outcomes such as human capital accumulation and household consumption. Her PhD work includes: the effect of college expansion on the intergenerational mobility in China; the heterogeneous effects of a restriction to traders on household consumption in Ethiopia.

During her visit at the School of Economics and Southern Africa Labour - Development Research Unit at the University of Cape Town, she works with Patrizio Piraino on analysing and explaining why father-in-law's educational background has a stronger explanatory power than father's schooling for male wages in South Africa, as part of the project “Schooling to Work Transition in South Africa”.

Prior to her PhD study, she got a bachelor’s degree in Urban and Rural Planning and a double degree in Economics from Peking University in China, where she first developed her research interest in development economics as a member of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. She then got a master’s degree in Economics from the University of Cambridge in UK as a preparation for her PhD.

Click on the research summary link below for more information on Peng's PODER research and papers. In addition to these, Peng has also worked with Sara Tonini (UCT PODER fellow) on the working paper 'Ethnic diversity and labour market outcomes: evidence from post-Apartheid South Africa'.

PODER appointment: September 2016 - August 2017.