Essays on human capital and innovation

This dissertation investigates three distinct but thematically connected questions about how long-run institutional legacies, environmental shocks, and educational settings shape human capital formation and innovation. Chapter 1 explores the long-run impact of historical success in China’s imperial civil service examination system—the keju—on modern innovation outcomes. Using prefecture–level data on the density of jinshi (top scorers on the national exam) between 1371 and 1905 and contemporary innovation, measured as the number of top scientists and engineers and the number of patents and their quality, finding a strong positive relationship. Results are robust to using an instrumental variable strategy that measures the minimum river distance from each prefecture to the nearest pine and bamboo forest. A doubling of the number of historically top scorers on the national exam leads to a 33 percentage increase in the number of top scientists and engineers and a 92 percentage increase in the number of patents. Investments in military equipment and telegraph construction play crucial roles in sustaining the long-term effects of China’s civil exams. Chapter 2 turns to acute environmental shocks, asking whether short-term pollution spikes increase mortality among vulnerable populations in Mexico City. I use thermally-inverted days as an instrument for elevated PM10 and carbon monoxide concentrations. Results indicate that both pollutants significantly increase the mortality of elderly people, with the largest effect sizes seen for those over 70 and smaller but still statistically significant effects for those ages 55 to 70. The mortality of infants under one year old was also shown to increase due to pollution exposure, but effect sizes are much smaller than for the elderly. These results suggest that policies reducing pollution may have broader mortality impacts than typically believed. Chapter 3 presents a case study from a poor Chinese county to examine whether attending the highest-ranked senior high school leads to better academic performance. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, I compare students just above and below the admission threshold. Although marginally admitted students were 35 percentage points more likely to attend the top school and had stronger peers, the analysis does not find statistically significant improvements in graduation test scores. There is some suggestive evidence of benefits for male students, but no clear differences by age or ethnicity. The estimates are imprecise, and the absence of significant effects may partly reflect limited statistical power. Robustness checks using alternative specifications and samples yield similar, though inconclusive, patterns. Taken together, these three chapters underscore the complex ways in which human capital and innovation are shaped by both historical legacies and contemporary shocks. Institutions like the keju can leave long-lasting marks on innovation trajectories, while acute environmental conditions can constrain human capitals. At the same time, the case study of elite school admission highlights that expanding access to educational opportunities may not always yield measurable gains—particularly when underlying structural constraints remain. More broadly, the dissertation emphasizes that the translation of opportunities into outcomes—whether in the form of academic achievement or technological innovation—is neither automatic nor uniform, but shaped by the interactions between individuals, institutions, and environments.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Economics

Grantor

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2025

Author dc:creator

• Tang, Chenxi

Contributors dc:contributor

• Akresh, Richard
• Borgschulte, Mark
• Marx, Benjamin
• Weinstein, Russell

• Human Capital
• Innovation
• Chinese Imperial Civil Service Examination
• Pollution
• Education Policy

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2025 Chenxi Tang

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129586

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F129586