My research interests include agricultural and resource economics, labor economics, demographic economics, and economic history. I have focused my research on inter-generational occupation choices, farm succession, rural migration, and rural mortality in the US.

• The Dust Bowl and Occupational Persistence in US Agriculture

This paper examines how a natural disaster affects intergenerational occupational choices, focusing on children of Dust Bowl–affected farmers. Using individual-level full-count US census data, I find that the Dust Bowl decreases occupational persistence in agriculture, while the parent generation continues to farm. Children of farmers are 21% less likely to become self-employed farmers and 10% more likely to work as wage-paid farmers after the Dust Bowl. Cohort analysis shows that younger cohorts with Dust Bowl–affected farmer parents are more likely to exit farming. Migration, schooling, and farm collapse are potential mechanisms. The findings show how an environmental shock reshapes labor outcomes across generations. It also unintentionally contributes to the US economy’s structural transformation away from agriculture in the mid-20th century.

• Compulsory Education and Occupational Persistence: Evidence from US Agriculture

This paper examines the impact of US compulsory education laws on occupational persistence in agriculture. Using the US Decennial Census Data and the Census of Agriculture from 1860 to 1910 and the Difference-in-Differences model, findings indicate a significant 8% reduction in the probability of farm household children becoming farmers. Heterogeneity analysis by gender, birth order, and race indicates that disadvantaged groups are more likely to transition from agricultural to non-agricultural sectors. Concurrently, farm number declines while average farm size increases, suggesting farm consolidation. This study shows evidence that US compulsory education laws play a role in accelerating structural transformation.

• Commodity Price Shocks and Rural Mortality (with Marc F. Bellemare and Joleen Hadrich)

The US Midwest, which is home to over 20 percent of Americans, depends heavily on agriculture. We look at the relationship between revenues from corn and soybeans---the dominant commodities in the Midwest---and mortality in a sample of 322 Midwestern counties for the period 1980-2019. As outcome variables, we look at age-adjusted all-cause death rates. As our treatment variable, we interact (i) state-level or global commodity prices with (ii) how much of each commodity is grown within each county. This captures how, for each commodity, revenues from that commodity change over time and across counties. For identification, we combine the exposure design just described with a two-way (i.e., county and year) fixed effects estimator. On average, a decrease in soybean revenue is associated with an increase in mortality: A 10-percent decrease in soybean revenues would have been associated with over 1,100 more deaths throughout the Midwest in 2019. This finding is driven by rural counties, where a decrease in either corn or soybean revenue or their combined total is associated with increased mortality. Our results appear mediated by deaths from cardiovascular disease, stroke, and alcohol use, as well as by deaths from mental illness, suicide, and drug overdose. Specifications in which we instrument revenues from each commodity with measures of drought severity and falsification tests further show the robustness of our results.

• Land, Loans, and Life Expectancy: The Effect of Wealth Transfers on Life Expectancy. (with Evan Robert, Henry Thomson, and Robert Schub)

• Agricultural Child Labor and Education: Evidence from Boll Weevil in the US South. (with T. Terry Cheung)

• The Impact of Dust Bowl Migration on Land Use Changes  (with Aparna Howlader)

• Return Migration in the Great Plains: The Aftermath of World War II  (with Aparna Howlader)

• Lee, Brian, Liu, Jhih-Yun, and Chang, Hung-Hao (2020). ``The Choice of Marketing Channel and Farm Profitability: Empirical Evidence from Small Farmers." Agribusiness, (36) 3 : 402-421. 

• Liao, Pei-An, Liu, Jhih-Yun,  Sun, Lih-Chyun, Chang, Hung-Hao  (2020). ``Can the Adoption of Protected Cultivation Facilities Affect Farm Sustainability?" Sustainability, 12 (23), 9970. 

• Wang, Szu-Yung, Liu, Jhih-Yun, and Chang, Hung-Hao (2018). ``An Old Bottle with New Wine: Examining the Association between Contract Farming and Farm Income Using the Matching Frontier Approach." The Empirical Economics Letters, (17) 12 : 1507-1515.