Welcome! I am Yanlei He, currently a full-time pre-doc in the Marketing Department at the National University of Singapore (NUS), concentrating on quantitative marketing research. I also initiate a weekly reading group on the latest marketing papers for PhD students at NUS.

My research interests focus on uncovering complex user-creator-platform interactions in digital markets, such as live-streaming commerce and social media. Methodologically, I use causal inference, structural modeling, machine learning, and generative AI tools.

Prior to NUS, I graduated from the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University, earning a Master's (2023) degree in Economics and a Bachelor's (2021) degree in Finance.

I'll be a Ph.D. student in Marketing (quantitative) at the SC Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University, in the Fall of 2025.

Email: heyanlei@nus.edu.sg

Research

Roots of Bias, Seeds of Change: Can Social Environment Undo Childhood Prejudice? (with Elaine M. Liu and Sharon Xuejing Zuo)

*updated draft available soon

Abstract: This paper explores the development of ingroup favoritism and outgroup bias among Han, Yi, and Mosuo children in Yunnan, China. Through an incentivized lab-in-the-field experiment, we assess children’s levels of outgroup bias using a modified dictator game. Our findings reveal a pronounced outgroup bias, particularly against Yi children, with Mosuo and Han children showing higher levels of prejudice. Notably, this bias mirrors the deep-seated prejudice observed among Mosuo and Han adults toward the Yi. The bias exhibited by children is not accounted for by socioeconomic differences between the Mosuo/Han and Yi groups. Additionally, we find that having a more educated mother is associated with less prejudiced attitudes in children. While contact with other ethnic groups reduces biases among Mosuo and Han girls, Mosuo and Han boys display stronger biases in classes with a higher proportion of Yi students.