Mike Cheng
Economics PhD Candidate
Georgetown University
I am a fourth year Economics PhD candidate with research interests in international trade and industrial organizations. My research focuses on the intersection of FDI, market power, and supply chain structure. I welcome coauthorship opportunities.
Education
Georgetown University
PhD Candidate in Economics
University of Chicago, Harris School of Public Policy
Master of Arts in Public Policy
Certificate of Research Methods and Certificate of Financial Policy
Recipient of Harris Merit Scholarship
June 2021
Carnegie Mellon University
Bachelor of Arts in Behavioral Economics, Policy and Organization
Minor in International Relations and Politics and Economics
Graduated with University Honor
Member of Omicron Delta Epsilon Honor Society
May 2019
Research
Working Papers
Going Overseas: FDI Decisions and Supply Chain Integration
This paper investigates how Chinese outbound foreign direct investment (FDI) influences the integration of host countries into China’s global supply network, addressing a key question: Does Chinese FDI deepen supply chain linkages between host economies and China? To answer this, I develop a comprehensive empirical–theoretical framework leveraging a novel dataset that uniquely combines detailed Chinese FDI records, firm-to-firm international trade data, and input–output industry linkages. Empirically, I first provide indirect evidence through sector-level analysis demonstrating significant downstream impacts—Chinese investments in downstream sectors are associated with notable increases in the market share of Chinese firms operating in related upstream industries. Additionally, I uncover evidence of upstream effects, showing that Chinese investments in sectors with high upstreamness correlate with increased host-country exports back to China, particularly benefiting lower-income economies.
FDI and Global Value Chain Assimilation
We take a network view of foreign direct investment (FDI) and global value chains (GVCs). First, we build a multiplex—linking countries by trade and by FDI—and track its evolution with edge-weighted centrality and coreness measures. Two facts emerge: (i) the FDI network has become more hub-and-spoke with outsized roles for offshore financial centers; (ii) trade and FDI centralities have increasingly decoupled since the early 2000s, implying distinct architectures for goods flows vs. ownership/finance. Second, using a dyadic gravity framework with high-dimensional fixed effects, we show that strengthening an FDI tie is associated with assimilation along supply chains: source–host pairs converge in their capital-expenditure baskets (especially in imported-capital-intensive sectors), while intermediate-input mixes move little; export bundles converge in tandem. The results indicate that FDI propagates capital-embodied know-how and reconfigures production linkages, rather than operating as a purely financial reallocation.
Teaching
Teaching Assistant
- Intermediate Macro Econ (Professor Dan Cao, Spring 2025)
- Public Sector Economics (Professor David Burk, Fall 2024)
- International Trade (Professor Pinar Cebi Wilber, Spring 2024)
- Intermediate Microeconomics (Professor Marius Schwartz, Fall 2023)
Curriculum Vitae
You can download my CV here.
Contact
Email: zc156@georgetown.edu
Phone: (617) 669-7091
Address: Department of Economics
Georgetown University
Washington, DC