Zixuan Pan潘梓轩 · 学术与光影

Quantitative Social ScientistNew York

潘梓轩

Zixuan Pan

Research for
policy and practice.

I study how institutions shape economic opportunity, with a focus on household finance and public policy. My work combines causal inference, survey analysis, and agent-based simulation to build evidence that can inform decisions.

BA, UC Berkeley MA, Columbia University

Curriculum Vitae Academic path
“The bright way seems dim; the advancing way seems to retreat.”「明道若昧，進道若退。」— Laozi, 《道德經》, Chapter 41
Approach

I want my research to be useful in decisions that affect people’s lives. That means starting with concrete problems, examining the evidence carefully, and taking the practical constraints of policy and organizations seriously.

Education

Economics, data,
and social science.

2022

Bachelor of Arts

Economics & Data Science

University of California, Berkeley · Minor in Journalism

An interdisciplinary foundation spanning econometrics, programming, machine learning, and public-facing storytelling.

2023—2024

Master of Arts

Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences

Columbia University · Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

GPA 3.86 · Thesis on government debt-management policy and firm-level real-estate investment.

Research

Institutions, policy,
and economic opportunity.

Research on household finance, public policy, and the decisions of firms and communities.

Research experience

Research

Independent Study Researcher

Graduate School of Journalism · UC Berkeley

Designed a quantitative study of monetary policy, household finance, and consumer spending using regression, clustering, and interactive data visualization.

Research

Research Assistant · Communities Speak

Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy · Columbia University

Applied survey weighting in R and analyzed employment, education, and economic-security outcomes across demographic and geographic groups in New York City.

Research

Research Assistant

International Computer Science Institute · UC Berkeley

Research on household economic decision-making, consumer-credit regulation, and fairness; develop reproducible agent-based simulations and Python evaluation pipelines.

Selected projects

壹

Computational social science

Credit systems as dynamic institutions

Agent-based policy simulations of household borrowing, credit access, default risk, and regulatory interventions—built to make institutional assumptions visible and testable.

ICSI · UC Berkeley
贰

Political economy

Debt policy and firm investment

A causal study of how local government debt-management policies reshape firm-level real-estate investment and the distribution of economic adjustment.

MA Thesis · Columbia University
叁

Survey research

Measuring lived economic conditions

Survey weighting and subgroup analysis on employment, education, unemployment insurance, and household conditions across New York City communities.

Communities Speak · Columbia ISERP

Research interests

Policy questions.
Computational perspectives.

01

计算社会科学

Computational Social Science

Using simulation and large-scale data to study social systems that change over time.

02

政策评估

Causal Inference & Policy Evaluation

Identifying how public policy changes behavior, opportunity, and institutional outcomes.

03

家庭经济安全

Household Economic Security

Credit access, inequality, financial vulnerability, and the rules that shape household choice.

04

调查与纵向数据

Survey & Longitudinal Data

Turning population data into representative, interpretable evidence about lived experience.

05

制度与政治经济学

Institutions & Political Economy

How governance, incentives, and institutional design distribute power and resources.

06

数据叙事

Data Visualization

Making complex evidence legible without flattening its uncertainty or human meaning.

Methods / 方法
Agent-based modelingDifference-in-differencesEvent studiesSurvey weightingPanel & longitudinal analysisMachine learningData visualizationLarge-scale data processing

Internships & practice

Working with policy
and organizations.

Policy research and industry experience, alongside my academic training.
Read the full CV (PDF) ↗

Policy

International Financial & Economic Researcher

Ministry of Finance of the PRC · International Economics and Finance Institute

Maintained macroeconomic datasets and produced decision-focused briefs on employment, inflation, growth, and fiscal conditions across major economies.

Industry

Data Analyst

Mastercard · Shanghai

Combined market and consumer analysis with institutional and regulatory research to support locally grounded recommendations on financial-product demand.

Policy

Policy Research Assistant

Asia Foundation of Digital Economy

Studied digital-economy development, employment, and workforce transformation across Asian economies, translating evidence into policy reports and analytical memos.

Beyond research · Fun facts

Looking closely,
beyond the data.

I enjoy photographing cityscapes and everyday life. Based in New York, I am drawn to the relationship between people and the places they inhabit.

01

Photographer of urban scale and everyday life

02

Companion to two cats

03

Mandarin · Cantonese · English

Photography

光影札记