Research – Chen Fang

Internship 📇

🌟🌟🌟 Economist Intern at Development Unit, UNHCR Jordan

Mar. 2025 - Sep. 2025 (Expected)

Base: Amman, Jordan 🇯🇴

Supervisors
- Marguerite Duponchel
- Erwin Knippenberg (World Bank)
Zaatari Camp Informal Market (with Jordanian Government): (1) Visit Zaatari Refugee Camp to understand the operation of the shops; (2) Qualitative and quantitative analysis using survey data; (3) Project the geographic coordinates of shops to present the spatial distribution. (Software: GIS)
Syrian Skills Mapping (with WFP): (1) Update the relevant codes provided by the World Bank team; (2) Monthly Update the t-test Big Table (by different categories of refugees) (Software: STATA, PowerBI, Publisher)
Poverty Analysis of SWIFT Dataty (with World Bank): (1)Following Zhang et al. (2023) WB working paper, reweighting the data to correct the non-response bias (2) Analyze the indebtment situation and intention to return of refugees (t-test Big Table incorporating weights); (3)Incorporate the poverty estimate provided by WB into SWIFT analysis (Software: R, STATA)
Determinants of Refugee Return (with WFP and World Bank): (1) Literature review about the potential driving forces of refugees’ return; (2) Merge several datasets to present a full picture of Syrian refugee return; (3) Detect potential non-response bias in Skills Mapping Survey; (4) Establish the statistical model (survival analysis) and the econometric model (Probit/DiD Model) (Software: R)
Miscellaneous: (1) Participate in the polishing and dissemination of the Home-Based Business report; (2) Write the summary about the Jordan pledges in the 2024 Global Refugee Forum; (3) Assist in the filming of the Chinese documentary On the Road; (4) Participate in the update UNHCR health access policy note; (5) Assist in updating the Mid Year Analysis on Returns to Syria from Jordan (Jan - Jun. 2025); (6) Present at the Launch of the “Giving Back Campaign” (Jordan Higher Education Alliance); (7) Participate in the discussion of the update of the methodology of the Climate Vulnerability Index (CVI) (the climate module in VAF 2025)

Output

Construction Sector Skills Mapping Data Analysis — Publication April 2025

🌟 Green Finance Intern, Institute of Finance and Sustainability (IFS)

Jun. 2022 - Oct. 2022

Base: Beijing, China 🇨🇳

Supervisor: Phoebe (Jiayin) Zhao
Main Contribution
- Daily work such as manuscript translation, writing meeting outlines and press release
- Collate and summarize the relevant information on the low-carbon development of institutional investors “Collaborative Engagement” enterprises in ESG field and participate in the report writing of relevant parts
- Drawing up an outline of an interview with the head of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI) in China
Research Publication
- A Report for the UK-China Green Finance Centre (in Chinese) 《加速气候行动：机构投资者参与支持企业低碳转型》

Research Assistant 📌

🌟 Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy (3E), Tsinghua University

Aug. 2021 - now

Instructors
Topic
- The Economic Impact of Carbon Peak and Neutrality in China
- China’s Green and Low-carbon Transition
Responsibility
- Collecting and processing energy economic data
- Collecting policy information and literature
- Participating in writing research reports, etc.
Main Progress 1 (Aug. 2021 - Dec. 2021): Assist in completing the project “The Characteristics and Enlightenment of major economies to achieve carbon peaking”.

Contribution ⚓

``(1) Data collection and processing. According to the US input-output table to integrate the added value of the sector and import and export data; collect the production volume of high-energy-consuming products such as steel and non-ferrous metals in China and the world, calculate the proportion, and the proportion of the industrial structure when the carbon peak of each developed country reaches the peak.`` `
` ``(2) Literature survey. Collecting the changes and characteristics of low-carbon transition policies in developed countries.``

Main Progress 2 (Mar. 2022 - Jun. 2022): Complete the separation of China’s 2017 and 2019 annual power data.

Contribution ⚓

``(1) Collect the power generation data of different provinces and technologies in China, and calculate the data of "kWh of coal consumption".`` `
` ``(2) Use the national "degree of thermal coal consumption" data to convert coal power and gas power generation.``

Main Progress 3 (Jul. 2022 - Dec. 2022): Calculate the data of exposure to air pollution and update the health evaluation part of the CGE model.

Contribution ⚓

``(1) Using ARIMA (Integrated Moving Average Autoregressive Model) time series method to predict the future GDP growth rate of different provinces in China.``
``(2) The part of health benefit evaluation in GAMS file of CGE model was updated to new concentration-response function of PM2.5, the GEMM (Global Exposure Mortality Model) evaluation method of epidemiology.``

Main Progress 4 (Feb. 2023 - now): Modelling and Analysis of the Slow Onset under the background of Climate Change.

Contribution ⚓

``(1) Organize and batch download the global high-resolution CMIP6 dataset (NEX-GDDP-CMIP6) provided by NASA.`` `
` ``(2) Projections of future labor productivity loss and energy demand in various Chinese provinces and sectors under different global climate scenarios and climate models.``

🌟 National School of Development (NSD), Peking University

Jan. 2023 - Aug. 2023

Instructors
Topic: The Economics Analysis of Verified Carbon Standard (VCS)
Main Contribution
- Complement the missing digital to get the accurate coordinates according to the provided encrypted raw forest coordinate point information.
- Use GIS to correct and re-project the coordinate points of forest land census data.

🌟 Institute of New Structural Economics (INSE), Peking University

Jul. 2022 - Sep. 2022

Instructor: Jiajun Xu
Topic: Update the policy report entitled Applying the Growth Identification and Facilitation Framework to Nepal (or UN CDP Background Paper No. 35)

About this Report ⚓

``This report is a working paper published by the Committee for Development Policy (CDP) of the United Nations in 2017. Its main contribution is to apply the Growth Identification and Facilitation Framework (GIFF) of New Structural Economics to Nepal.`` `
` ``This update needs to update the latest situation of Nepal's economic and social development in combination with factors such as Nepal's graduation from Least Development Country (LDC) and the impact of the epidemic.``

Main Contribution:
- Read Lin, Justin Yifu’s World Bank working paper to learn the basic framework of New Structural Economics and GIFF’s two-track six-step method.
- Combining the original report with the existing data to get the task list corresponding to the updated report.
- Redraw the charts in the research report and update the data and text.
Research Publication:
- The updated Report: Applying the Growth Identification and Facilitation Framework to Nepal: 2023 update (United Nations ESCAP working paper series, Section on Sustainable Development and Countries in Special Situations, November 2023. Bangkok.)

Other Research Experience 🌈

🔆🔆🔆Oct. 2020 - May. 2021: 29th “Challenge Cup” of PKU, May 4th Youth Science Award Competition with Xiaotia Ma, Zhuochao Li and Shanyu Zhou

Title: Analysis of China’s carbon emission reduction factors under Carbon Neutrality

Subtitle: Based on LMDI and SDA decomposition

Academic Advisor: Hancheng Dai

Contribution:

① Learned the SDA decomposition method

② Obtained main driving forces of China’s carbon emissions in past by analyzing the input-output tables of 2002, 2007, 2012, and 2017

③ Drew Figures, wrote research report, made final PPT

🔆Apr. 2020 - Jun. 2020: Cost-Benefit Analysis on the Clean Energy Heating Policy in North China Region with Tingyu Cui and Wei You

Methods:

① Used DID method to quantify the contribution of clean energy heating policy, used IMED-HEL, IER, and GEMM models to assess the health impact of the policy;

② Monetized the health impacts using human capital method (YLPP) and willing-to-pay method (WTP)

Contribution:

Completed quantitative assessment of health risks and calculation of energy cost from coal to electricity and wrote research report.

🔆🔆Sep.2021 – Nov.2022: Undergraduate Research of Peking University

Academic Advisor: Hancheng Dai and Yazhen Wu

Research Topic: Global biomass energy supply curve and its possible impact on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Summary: ⚓

``This study quantitatively simulated the global biomass production cost under different demand and sustainable development constraint scenarios, plotted the biomass supply curve, and quantitatively analyzed the trade-off relationship between biomass production and sustainable development goals (SDGs) such as land management, food security and greenhouse gas emissions.``

Conclusions:

(a) Biomass energy has certain development space in the future, but it is faced with economic feasibility constraints.

(b) The production of biomass energy needs to pay attention to the competition and trade-off between raw material planting and food crops.

PPT and the Final Report