Wei Zhang, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Education and Experience
Wei Zhang received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has taught at UW-Madison and UW-LaCrosse prior to joining NIU in 2009. Her published work has studied information asymmetry in insurance markets, private information in health care utilization, multiple dimensions of private information in job market signaling, and dynamic contract design under non-conventional assumptions of preference.
Research
- Endogenous preferences and applications
- Information asymmetry in insurance
Areas of Specialization
- Behavioral Economics
- Applied Game Theory
- Microeconomics
- Industrial Organization
Courses Taught
- Economics 375: Industrial Economics
- Economics 393: Introduction to Mathematical Methods in Economics
- Economics 492: Research Methods in Economics
- Economics 648: Graduate Game Theory
- Economics 760: Graduate Microeconomic Analysis II
Selected Publications
- "Dynamic moral hazard: a longitudinal examination of automobile insurance in Canada." Journal of Risk and Insurance, Vol. 85, Iss. 4, 2018, pages 939-958 (with P Shi and JP Boucher)
- "A test of asymmetric learning in competitive insurance with partial information sharing." Journal of Risk and Insurance, Vol. 83, Iss. 3, 2016, pages 557-578 (with P Shi)
- "Private information in health care utilization: specification of a copula-based hurdle model." Journal of the Royal Statistical Society-Series A, Vol. 178, Iss. 2, 2015, pages 337-361 (with P Shi)
- "Job market signaling with two dimensions of private information." Bulletin of Economic Research, Vol. 66, Iss. 2, 2014, pages 113–132
- "Managed care and healthcare utilization: specification of bivariate models using copulas." North American Actuarial Journal, Vol. 17: Iss. 4, 2013, pages 306-324 (with P Shi)
- Endogenous preferences and dynamic contract design, E. Journal of Theoretical Economics (Contributions), Vol. 12: Iss. 1, Article 19, 2012, 33 pages
- Testing asymmetric information with two-dimensional information: evidence from the Singapore auto insurance market, Journal of Risk and Insurance, Vol. 79: Iss. 4, 2012, pages 1077-1114 (with P Shi and E Valdez)
