Researche Fields

1.   Economic Geography

Under the instruction and support of my advisor, Professor.Dean Hanink, I currently focus on finding the association between the decline of union membership and the rise trend of wage inequality in major U.S. industries in the past three decades by metropolitian area which using regression model employing several independent variables, such as population, age, gender, education level, household income inequality, and the union membership rate as explainable variable.

The decline of organized labor in the United States coincided with a large increase in wage inequality. From 1973 to 2007, union member- ship in the private sector declined from 34 to 8 percent for men and from 16 to 6 percent for women. During this time, wage inequality in the private sector increased by over 40 percent. Union decline forms part of an institutional account of rising inequality that is often con- trasted with a market explanation. In the mar- ket explanation, technological change, immi- gration, and foreign trade increased demand for highly skilled workers, raising the premium paid to college graduates (for reviews, see Autor, Katz, and Kearney 2008; Gottschalk and Danziger 2005; Lemieux 2008). Compared to market forces, union decline is often seen as a modest source of rising inequality (Autor et al. 2008). Scholars view unions’ effects as indirect, mediating the influence of technological change (Acemoglu 2002); secondary to other institutions like the minimum wage (Card and DiNardo 2002; The decline of U.S.labor and the associated increase in wage inequality signaled the deterioration of the labor market as a political institution. Work- ers became less connected to each other in their organizational lives and less connected in their economic fortunes. The de-politiciza- tion of the U.S. labor market appears self- reinforcing: as organized labor’s political power dissipates, economic interests in the labor market are dispersed and policymakers have fewer incentives to strengthen unions or otherwise equalize economic rewards. Although industry and regional variation play important roles, the key comparison implied by our analysis is fundamentally his- torical, from the early 1970s to the 2000s. In the earlier period, unions offered an alterna- tive to an unbridled market logic, and this institutional alternative employed over a third of all male private sector workers. The social experience of organized labor bled into non- union sectors, contributing to greater equality overall. As unions declined, not only did the logic of the market encroach on what had been the union sector, but the logic of the market deepened in the nonunion sector, too, contributing to the rise in wage inequality. see reference.

2.    GIS application in Environment Issues and Transportation

I have strong interests in using ArcGIS software as a tool to solve realistic social problems, especially environment issues and transportation system. Last semester, I worked on a project which focus on the spatial distribution of connecticut hospitals. The result is interesting and shock, which is no CT hospitals coincide with the location requirement of CAH (CRITICAL ACCESS HOSPITALS) which named by Department of Health and Human Services of the United States. I've learned a lot from this project, like spatial analysis on specific issus and technical skills. I think I'll continue doing related research or GIS application in the furture, because I got lots of fun and knowledge as well as discovery in this scientific field.

3.    Spatial Data Analysis

Along with my study, I have been involved in studies in spatial data analysis and geostatistics, using the related methodology on my research and GIS applications.