Job Market Paper

Leading by Words: Evidence from xxx Oratory (with Letian Zhang).

This paper investigates how a charismatic leader’s oratory can catalyze political and social change. We assemble a new dataset of speeches linked to local outcomes, and employ several empirical strategies to identify the impact of exposure to oratory. The findings demonstrate that leaders’ speeches can influence political preferences, mobilize collective action, and shift media narratives. We expect this study will contribute to four strands of literature: leadership and charismatic influence, media economics and political communication, collective action and public goods provision, and historical political economy.

Publications & Under Review

• Xin Ouyang, Xuege (Cathy) Lu and Letian Zhang, Rise of the Collaborators: The Evolution of the Managerial Archetype and Women’s Collaborative Advantage, Revise & Resubmit at Strategic Management Journal.
• Xin Ouyang, Xuege (Cathy) Lu and Letian Zhang, Labor-Market Outcomes of Feminist Activists, Revise & Resubmit at Strategic Management Journal.
• Xin Ouyang, Zhen Sun and Ke Tang, Financial Markets and Corporate Innovation: A New Perspective from the Mitigation of Patent Value Depreciation, Accepted at Management World(管理世界).
• Cheng, W., Ouyang, X., Yu, A., Shen, Z., & Vardanyan, M., Subjective perceptions versus objective outcomes: Assessing the impact of smart city pilots on environmental quality in China, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2024.
• Ouyang, X., Sun, Z., & Xu, X., Patent system in the digital era: Opportunities and new challenges, Journal of Digital Economy, 2022.
• Cheng, W., Wang, Q., Ouyang, X., Xie, Y., Gao, Y., & Yu, A., Effect of economic and technological development zones on green innovation: learning by importing perspective, Journal of Global Information Management, 2021.

Working Papers

• Xin Ouyang, Zhen Sun and Richard Freeman, Strength in Numbers? Inventor Team and the Innovation Quality Ladder in Chinese Patents, Accepted at the 2026 AEA Annual Meeting (forthcoming).
• Xin Ouyang 地区创新竞合与经济增长：基于技术适用性和知识流动的视角, part of PhD dissertation.
• Xin Ouyang, Yixin Luo, Xie Yang and Zhen Sun, Nature or Nurture? Evidence from Competition Outcomes of Chinese Swimmers, Working Paper.
• Wenyin Cheng, Xin Ouyang, Yiwei Wang, From Words to Welfare: Bridging Policy Discourse and Human-Centered Outcomes in Smart City Pilots, Working Paper.
• Xin Ouyang, Zhen Sun, Tianyi Xiao, Yi Zhao and Bozhong Zheng, Are Female Sellers More Trustworthy? Evidence From Large-scale Second-hand Transactions, Working Paper.

Works In Progress

• Waste Management and Urban Development: Evidence from China, with Bobing Qiu and Jaecheol Lee.
• Upstream Incentives, Downstream Costs: Environmental Externalities and Green Innovation in China's River-Chief System, with Bobing Qiu, Jaecheol Lee and Yi Zhao.
• Large Language Models in Bibliometrics: Methods, Perspectives, and Applications.
• Eastward Spread of Western Learning in the 21st Century: Evidence from Chinese Technology Companies, with Richard Freeman.
• Spread the Gospel: The Effects of Protestant Missionary on Gender Inequality in China.
• Cannot Flay the Same Ox Twice? Assessing the Impact of Production System Reform on US Patent Examinations, with Zhen Sun and Richard Freeman.
• “One Child, One Patent?” Fertility Policy and the Gender Innovation Gap in China, with Zhen Sun and Yana Moiseenko.