Guoer Liu

Guoer Liu

Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science
University of California, San Diego

guoerliu@ucsd.edu

I study how automation reshapes governance by changing the way governments produce data, exercise discretion, and shape public trust. My research focuses on environmental governance in China. I also work on causal inference and survey methodology. [CV]

Working papers

When Automation Builds Trust: Information Credibility and Authoritarian Rule

Getting the Counterfactual Right in Survey-Timing Designs

with Jieun Oh, Yusaku Horiuchi, and Yuki Shiraito

Co-opting Automation: How Technology Reorganizes Political Discretion in China

Book manuscript

Automated: Why Governments Bind Themselves to Machines

Publications

Why the Average Treatment Effect for the Overlap Population (ATO) Matters for Natural Experiments

with Kevin M. Quinn

Journal of Law & Empirical Analysis, forthcoming

What to Observe When Assuming Selection on Observables

with Kevin M. Quinn, Lee Epstein, and Andrew D. Martin

Political Analysis, 34(1): 1-22, 2026 [code]

Where Are the Missing Dead? How Metrics Management Mitigates Official Data Misreporting in China

Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy, 4(2): 231-258, 2023 [paper]

Multiple Hypothesis Testing in Conjoint Analysis

with Yuki Shiraito

Political Analysis, 31(3): 380-395, 2023 [code]

The Clash of Traditional Values: Opposition to Female Monarchs

with Kenneth Mori McElwain and Yuki Shiraito

European Political Science Review, 15(2): 291-310, 2023

Socialist Models of Development

with Andrew Kilmister

In Poverty and Development: Into the 21st Century, 3rd ed., Oxford University Press, 2021