Topic:

Time&Date:

10:30 am -12:00 pm, March 14, 2025 (Friday)

Venue

Room D904, Teaching Complex D Building

Speaker:

Ting Chen

Hong Kong Baptist University

This paper investigates the economic impacts of inefficiency in the transport network, using China’s restrictive airspace as a case study. China’s commercial airlines are limited to only 20% of its airspace, resulting in an average route curvature of 17% — compared to 5% in the U.S. and Europe. Using route curvature as a direct inefficiency measure and an IV estimation strategy, we find that increased route curvature raises airfares, reduces flight frequencies, increases delay rate, and reduces aero-connected city pairs. These inefficiencies cascade into broader economic costs, hampering intercity activities including cross-city corporate investment, patent collaboration, personal travel, and population migration.

Biography:

Dr. Ting Chen is an Associate Professor of Economics at Hong Kong Baptist University. She earned her doctorate in Social Science from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2015, followed by postdoctoral positions at Princeton University joint with CUHK-Shenzhen after HKUST. Dr. Chen’s research focuses on economic history, urban economics, and political economy, with particular emphasis on China. Her acclaimed work includes studies on China’s imperial examination system, corruption in land markets, and urban development patterns. Her research has been published in prestigious journals including The Economic Journal, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Urban Economics, Journal of Development Economics and Journal of Econometrics. Her paper has been awarded with the Royal Economic Society Best Paper Award in 2020 and the Young Achievement Award from China’s Ministry of Education in 2024.