Dean Yang

About

Dean Yang is a professor of public policy and economics at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan, and also holds positions as a Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at LSA and as a Research Professor at the Population Studies Center. His research focuses on the economic problems of developing countries, with current areas of interest including international migration, health, culture, and political economy. Yang teaches courses on the economics of developing countries and development economics at the Ford School. He received both his undergraduate and PhD degrees in economics from Harvard University. His work involves analyzing issues such as international development, migration, health decision-making, and economic growth in developing nations, contributing to the understanding of how policies and economic behaviors impact development outcomes.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Natural resource economics
• Economics
• Agricultural economics
• Public economics
• Economic growth
• Market economy
• Business
• Geography

Selected publications

• Taken by Storm: Hurricanes, Migrant Networks, and US Immigration

  American Economic Journal Applied Economics · 2020-03-26 · 108 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  How readily do potential migrants respond to increased returns to migration? Even if origin areas become less attractive vis-à-vis migration destinations, fixed costs can prevent increased migration. We examine migration responses to hurricanes, which reduce the attractiveness of origin locations. Restricted-access U.S. Census data allows precise migration measures and analysis of more migrant-origin countries. Hurricanes increase U.S. immigration, with the effect increasing in the size of prior…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Subsidies and the African Green Revolution: Direct Effects and Social Network Spillovers of Randomized Input Subsidies in Mozambique

  American Economic Journal Applied Economics · 2021 · 93 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  The Green Revolution, which bolstered agricultural yields and economic well-being in Asia and Latin America beginning in the 1960s, largely bypassed sub-Saharan Africa. We study the first randomized controlled trial of a government-implemented input subsidy program (ISP) in Africa intended to foment a Green Revolution. We find that this temporary subsidy for Mozambican maize farmers stimulates Green Revolution technology adoption and leads to increased maize yields. Effects of the subsidy persis…

  DOI

• Brain drain or brain gain? Effects of high-skilled international emigration on origin countries

  Science · 2025-05-22 · 21 citations

  reviewSenior author

  How does emigration of highly educated citizens of low-income countries to high-income countries affect the economies of the origin countries? The direct effect is "brain drain"-a decrease in the country's human capital stock. However, there may also be indirect "brain gain" effects. This review summarizes evidence that uses causal inference methods to reveal mechanisms that may lead to brain drain, gain, or circulation. Collectively, the weight of the evidence suggests that migration opportunit…

  PublisherDOI

• Information and immigrant settlement

  Journal of Development Economics · 2024-05-06 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  We study a randomly-assigned program providing information on U.S. settlement for new Filipino immigrants. The intervention, a 2.5-hour pre-departure training and an accompanying paper handbook, has no effect on employment, settlement, and subjective wellbeing, but leads immigrants to acquire substantially fewer social network connections. We rationalize these findings with a simple model, showing that information and social network links are substitutes under reasonable assumptions. Consistent…

  PublisherDOI

• Correcting Misperceptions about Support for Social Distancing to Combat COVID-19

  Economic Development and Cultural Change · 2023-08-02 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  the perceived benefits from social distancing. We estimate impacts on social distancing, measured using a combination of self-reports and reports of others. While experts surveyed in advance expected the treatment to increase social distancing, we find that its average effect is close to zero and significantly lower than expert predictions. However, the treatment's effect is heterogeneous, as predicted by theory: it decreases social distancing where current COVID-19 cases are low (where free-rid…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• David McKenzie

  114 shared

• Kate Ambler

  107 shared

• Diego Aycinena

  University of Pennsylvania

  101 shared

• Ganesh Seshan

  84 shared

• Xavier Giné

  76 shared

• Caroline Theoharides

  Amherst College

  70 shared

• Jessica Goldberg

  56 shared

• Dan Silverman

  Arizona State University

  51 shared

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