Shen Qu

Georgetown University
Department of Economics
37 & O Streets, NW 580 ICC
Washington, DC 20057

http://shenqu.weebly.com
(202) 642-7920
sq34@georgetown.edu

EDUCATION
Ph.D. in Economics, Georgetown University
Expected Completion: June 2015
Thesis: Essays on the Political Economy of Trade Policy and Trade Agreements
B.S. in Mathematics and Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 2005-2009

DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
Prof. Rodney D. Ludema (Chair)
Department of Economics, Georgetown University
(202) 687-6712
ludemar@georgetown.edu

Prof. Anna M. Mayda

Department of Economics, Georgetown University
(202) 687-1429
amm223@georgetown.edu

Prof. Roger Lagunoff

Department of Economics, Georgetown University
(202) 687-1510
lagunofr@georgetown.edu

FIELDS OF INTEREST
International Trade, Political Economy.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Summer 2013

Instructor, Georgetown University, International Trade.

2013-2014

Teaching Assistant for Prof. Anna M. Mayda, Georgetown University,

Political Economy of Trade Policy.
Teaching Assistant for Prof. James Albrecht and Professor John Rust,
Georgetown University, Econometrics I (PhD level).
Teaching Assistant for Prof. Jinhui Bai, Georgetown University,
Intermediate Macroeconomics.
Teaching Assistant for Prof. Roger Lagunoff, Georgetown University,
Analytical Tools of Political Economy.

2011-2012

PRESENTATIONS
2014

Midwest International Trade Conference, Georgetown International Trade Seminar.

HONORS AND AWARDS

2009-2014

Merit-based Scholarship & Teaching Assistantship, Georgetown University.

PERSONAL INFORMATION
Nationality: China (F-1 Visa).

Gender: Male.

Language: English, Chinese.

SOFTWARE SKILLS
Stata, Matlab, C++.
RESEARCH PAPERS
A Model of Lobby Participation and Tariff Binding Overhang (Job Market Paper)
We propose a model of trade policy formation, featuring endogenous firm participation in competing lobbies,
and show that weak tariff bindings, as mandated by the GATT/WTO, serve to increase participation in
the domestic pro-trade lobby and decrease applied tariffs. In our model the tariff ceiling works as an
external constraint that reduces the off-the-equilibrium-path joint payoff of the government and the antitrade lobby, thus reducing the contribution necessary for the pro-trade lobby to achieve a given applied tariff
and thereby encouraging greater participation. The model explains the empirical puzzle, especially in many
small developing countries, that tariff caps even strictly above the applied tariffs tend to reduce the latter.
We then extend the model to show that when country enters the negotiations towards a trade agreement,
the pro-trade lobby group expands; and when the tariff cap stipulated by the trade agreement is imposed,
the pro-trade lobby group expands further.
Protection (or Liberalization) for Sale with Firm Selection
Previous models of the political economy of trade policy have studied how lobbying shapes the cross-industry
variation in protection levels, with the assumptions of relatively simple trade structures. This paper introduces the firm selection channel into a setting where heterogeneous firms lobby the government for protection
in the unilateral setting (as well as liberalization in the cooperative setting). A lower domestic tariff imposed
on a sector will raise prices of the imported varieties and drive out relatively weaker foreign exporting firms,
but will allow some less productive (and thus smaller) domestic ones to survive. In each industry, lobbying
activities are (endogenously) dominated by larger firms that face the trade-off between driving out weaker
foreign competitors (induced by a higher tariff) and weeding out less efficient domestic competitors (induced
by a lower tariff). We are able to derive explicit formulas for the protection structures across different industries, in both the unilateral and the cooperative setting. In particular, we link the curvatures of the
productivity distributions of both domestic and foreign firms in a sector to the sectors endogenous tariff
level. Interestingly, we find that how a sectors domestic firm heterogeneity impacts its protection level
depends on whether the political economy consideration is dominant, and that how a sectors foreign firm
heterogeneity affects its protection level hinges on whether the home government sets tariffs unilaterally or
cooperatively.

Tariff bindings, lobby participation and gradual trade liberalization (Work in Progress)