Bingchao Huangfu

Department of Economics Phone: (+86) 13125195803

University of Rochester E-mail: hfbcalan@gmail.com
Harkness Hall https://bingchaohuangfu.weebly.com
Rochester, NY 14627, USA. Citizenship: China

Education
Ph.D. in Economics, University of Rochester, May 2016
Ph.D student in Economics, University of Iowa, August 2010-May 2011
M.A. in International Finance, Fudan University, July 2010
B.A. in International Finance, Fudan University, July 2007

Faculty Career
Assistant Professor of Economics, Wenlan Business School, Zhongnan University of Economics
and Law, China, 2016-2019

Research Fields
Dynamic Games, Information Economics, Industrial Organization, Mechanism Design.

Working Papers
• “Information Spillover in Multi-good Adverse Selection”, with Heng Liu, 2019 (Job Market
Paper, R&R in American Economic Journal: Microeconomics).
• “A Model of Multiproduct Firm Growth”, 2019, R&R in International Game Theory Review.
• “Wars of Attrition with Private Resource Constraints”, 2019, under review.
• “Stochastic Quality Cycles”, 2019.
• “Dynamic Innovation for Experience Goods”, 2019.
• “Stochastic Quality Dynamics under Duopoly Competition”, 2019.

Work In Progress
• “Information Spillover in Double Auctions with Divisible Assets,” with Heng Liu, 2019.
• “Bargaining with Synergies,” with Esat Doruk Cetemen and Heng Liu, 2019.
 Bingchao Huangfu

Teaching Experience
• Assistant Professor of Economics, at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, China
– Intermediate Microeconomics (Undergraduate), 2016-2019.
– Information Economics (Undergraduate), 2016-2019.
– Game Theory (Graduate), 2016-2019.
– Industrial Organization (Graduate), 2016-2019.
• Instructor at University of Rochester
– Intermediate Microeconomics (Undergraduate), Summer 2015, University of Rochester.
• Teaching Assistant at University of Rochester (2011-2016)
– Modern Value Theory II (Graduate) – Professor Paulo Barelli
– Intermediate Microeconomics (Undergraduate) – Professor Steven Landsburg
– Intermediate Microeconomics (Undergraduate) – Professor Kuzey Yilmaz

Conferences
• European Economic Association and Econometric Society European Meeting, University of
Manchester, 2019.
• Econometric Society China Meeting, Fudan University, 2018.
• Econometric Society Asian Meeting, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2017.
• Econometric Society North American Meeting, University of Pennsylvania, 2016.
• International Game Theory Conference, Nanjing Audit University, 2017, 2019.
• International Conference on Game Theory, SUNY at Stony Brook, July 2014, 2016.
• Midwest Economic Theory Conference, University of Rochester, April 2016.
• Midwest Economic Theory Conference, Penn Sate University, Oct 2015.
• Midwest Economic Theory Conference, Ohio State University, April 2015.

Fellowships, Scholarships, and Awards

• Graduate Fellowship and Tuition Scholarship, University of Rochester, 2011-2013, 2014-2016.
• W. Allen Wallis Fellow, University of Rochester, 2013-2014.

Others
• Languages: Chinese (native), English (fluent).
 Bingchao Huangfu

References
Professor Srihari Govindan(Co-Advisor) Professor Paulo Barelli(Co-Advisor)
Department of Economics Department of Economics
University of Rochester University of Rochester
Rochester, NY 14627, USA. Rochester, NY 14627, USA.
Phone: (+1) 585-275-7214 Phone: (+1) 585-275-8075
E-mail: s.govindan@rochester.edu E-mail: paulo.barelli@rochester.edu

Professor Qiang Gong

Dean of Wenlan Business School
Zhongnan University of Economics and Law
Wuhan, Hubei, 430073, China.
Phone: (+86) 18171393399
E-mail: qgongpku@qq.com

Information Spillover in Multi-good Adverse Selection

(Joint with Heng Liu) (Job Market Paper)

This paper analyzes information spillover in a multi-good adverse selection model in which a
privately informed seller trades two different goods with different buyers. Buyers learn the seller’s
information from both the market they participate and the trading outcomes in the other market.
We identify a sufficient negative correlation condition under which information spillover reduces
efficiency loss. We also discover a novel coordination friction that leads to multiple equilibria,
which can be welfare-ranked by the number of initial no-trade periods. When the sufficient negative
correlation condition fails, the efficiency loss is the same as in the case without information spillover.

A Model of Multiproduct Firm Growth

(R&R in International Game Theory Review)

This article studies optimal growth strategies of a multiproduct firm that invests in the qualities
of different products, which have persistent effects on future payoffs and are modeled as a state
 Bingchao Huangfu

variable of a stochastic game. We derive a unique Markov perfect equilibrium. At the early stage,
the firm focuses on the product with higher quality, and may switch its specialization. If the quality
of the specialized good is high enough, the firm diversifies to capture demands for all products.
However, the firm may lose its focus on either product and get no demand, due to a moral hazard
problem.

Wars of Attrition with Private Resource Constraints

(Joint with Gagan Ghosh and Heng Liu)

This paper studies wars of attrition in which players have private resource constraints, such
as budget limits. We show that whether a player can fight longer than her opponent, that is, has
a budget advantage, is a key measure of strength in wars of attrition, and uncertainty leads to
delay and inefficiency. Furthermore, budget advantage provides a foundation of behavioral types
in reputation models: in the unique equilibrium surviving a refinement, high budget players always
fight and low budget players fight to develop a reputation of “deep pocket” until they deplete
their budgets. We then study a generalization with multiple homogeneous prizes, where we obtain
an equivalence result between sequential and simultaneous allocations of prizes through wars of
attrition: the winner takes all in both formats and the equilibrium outcomes are the same in the
continuous-time limit. Finally, we show that the results extend to the case with a continuum of
budget levels.

Stochastic Quality Cycles

This paper studies a model of quality-building in which the quality of a firm is treated as capital
stock that accumulates by past investments, depreciates when there is no investment, and has
a persistent effect on future payoffs. The setting is a discrete-time discounted stochastic game
between a long-run firm and a sequence of short-run buyers where the firm’s quality is the state
variable. If actions are taken frequently enough, there is a unique Markov perfect equilibrium.
For low levels of quality, the firm randomizes between investing and not investing, and the buyers
randomize between buying and not buying. The firm always has an incentive to build the quality
even if the stock reaches the lowest level. For high levels of quality, there is full demand and the
firm exploits the quality by not investing. Quality moves cyclically between these two stages. Under
certain circumstances, there is an extra stage, a quality-absorbing stage. If the firm’s quality is very
low, the firm loses the incentive to invest and quality eventually declines to the lowest level which
 Bingchao Huangfu

is an absorbing state. We also characterize the equilibrium if price is endogenously chosen by the
firm, and find that the firm implements a premium pricing strategy at the early stage and a discount
pricing strategy at the late stage.

Dynamic Innovation for Experienced Goods

We build a dynamic model in which the firm sells an experience good to a population of hetero-
geneous buyers with independent private valuation. Each buyer makes repeated purchase and the
private valuation is revealed to the buyer with a probability after each purchase. The firm chooses
the innovation level which has a persistent effect on current and future product quality. We show
that if there is a large fraction of informed buyers and the product quality is low, the firm imple-
ments a niche market strategy by only targeting the informed buyers. Otherwise, there is a mass
market in which the firm attracts both the informed and uninformed buyers. The firm may switch
from niche market to mass market after a series of quality upgrade and vice versa.

Quality Dynamics under Duopoly Competition

This paper studies a dynamic duopoly model of quality-building in which qualities are treated
as capital stocks that are influenced by past investment decisions, and have persistent effects on
future payoffs. The setting is a discrete-time discounted stochastic game between two long-run
firms and a sequence of short-run buyers, where the state variables are qualities of the two firms.
If buyers can only buy from either firm, then the state of competition is captured by the difference
of two qualities. There are two types of stationary Markov equilibria. In catch-up equilibria, the
leader, with a higher market share, exploits quality by not investing; the follower invests with
positive probability and eventually catches up with the leader. In permanent leadership equilibria,
depending on the initial state of the economy, the economy asymptotically consists either of two
firms competing forever or of just one dominant firm. If buyers have an outside option of not
buying, duopoly competition is not a major concern if both qualities are lower than a threshold,
above which it is a dominant strategy for buyers to buy from either firm. Ignoring the rival’s quality,
each firm focuses on building up its own quality until at least one quality is built up higher than the
threshold, and a duopoly competition begins to take place.