Young Researcher Workshop

How the Chinese Government Faces Citizen Pressure from Climate Change

Speaker: Matt DeButts, Ph.D. Candidate in Communications at Stanford University

We use a dataset of citizen petitions to estimate the effect of climate change-induced flooding on citizen petitions, using data gathered from the People's Daily message board in Henan 2021. We find that complaints increase in the wake of flooding, and that citizen discontent from flooding are both direct and place strains upon existing infrastructure. We use regression discontinuity design (RDD) to estimate the effect of floods on citizen complaints, and topic model modeling alongside logistic regression to assess correlations between floods, topics, and government response.

About the Workshops

The SCCEI Young Researcher Workshops are a bi-weekly series of presentations from scholars around campus who are working on issues related to China’s economy and institutions. The aim of the series is to bring together young scholars by providing a platform to present new research, get feedback, exchange ideas, and make connections. Each session features a single presenter who may present a new research plan, share results from preliminary data analyses, or do a trial run of a job talk or conference presentation. The Workshop Series is an opportunity to give and receive feedback on existing research, get to know other researchers around campus who are working on or in China, and be a testing ground for new ideas, data, and presentations.

Workshops are held every other Thursday from 1 - 2 pm. Afternoon refreshments will be provided! 

Visit the Young Researcher Workshops webpage for more information on the content and format of the series and to learn how to sign up to present.