Xu Lin has been named as an associate professor in the Department of Economics, part of the Virginia Tech College of Science.

Prior to joining Virginia Tech, Lin worked as an associate professor in the economics department at Wayne State University. She also previously served as an assistant professor at the economics department of Tsinghua University in China.

Lin’s research areas include applied econometrics, labor economics, and health economics. She is particularly interested in spatial autoregressive models, as well empirical applications of these models to study social interactions and social networks on a variety of behaviors and outcomes in the fields of labor and health economics, including student academic achievement; teenage deviant behaviors, such as smoking and drinking; worker productivity; and health-related issues, such as competition of health-care providers and spillover effects in regional market penetration of different health insurance plans.

Her research has been published in the Journal of Econometrics, Journal of Labor Economics, Review of Economics and Statistics, Econometrics Journal, Regional Science and Urban Economics, and Empirical Economics. She has received research grants from the World Bank Group and National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Lin earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Renmin University of China, and master’s and doctoral degrees from The Ohio State University, all in economics.

Lin is one of 22 tenured and tenure-track faculty members to join the College of Science and the Virginia Tech School of Neuroscience this year.

 

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