Daniel Yi Xu | Social Learning and Assortative Matching in Chinese EV Ecosystem
Daniel Yi Xu | Social Learning and Assortative Matching in Chinese EV Ecosystem
Friday, November 13, 202612:00 PM - 1:20 PM (Pacific)
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall
SCCEI Seminar Series (Fall 2026)
Friday, November 13, 2026 | 12:00 pm -1:20 pm Pacific Time
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way
Social Learning and Assortative Matching in Chinese EV Ecosystem
We study China’s electric vehicle industry, where rapid expansion was accompanied by extensive entry and exit. Combining vehicle sales, supplier relationships, and public quality complaints, we examine how small entrants generate information that shapes the industry’s supply chain. Small firms disproportionately adopt previously untested components and suppliers. We find that small-firm entry expands the local supplier base and increases suppliers’ subsequent adoption by large manufacturers, including those outside the local market. We document social learning as a mechanism: manufacturers switch suppliers in response to complaints about other firms’ vehicles, and suppliers receiving adverse signals lose both existing and prospective customers. A Bayesian learning model and an estimated supplier-choice model show that procurement decisions respond to evolving public information about supplier reliability. As a result, information spillovers provide potential benefits of an industrial policy that assessments based solely on entrant survival may overlook.
About the Speaker
Daniel Yi Xu is the David Rubenstein Distinguished Professor of Economics at Duke University, a Faculty Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Research Fellow at the Center for Economic Policy Research, and a Senior Fellow at the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research.
His research focuses on the intersection of productivity, international trade, and industrial organization. Professor Xu’s current research agenda involves the use of large-scale microdata to model and estimate a broad range of dynamic individual firm decisions and to examine how these decisions impact resource allocation, industry performance, and economic growth, particularly in developing and emerging economies.
His most recent work has been published in leading economics journals, including the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Review of Economic Studies, RAND Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Dynamics, and Management Science. Professor Xu is currently a co-editor of the American Economic Journal: Microeconomics and an associate editor of the RAND Journal of Economics.